I’ve read a fair bit on navigation techniques and books never fail to point out how GPS is bad for your brain. The general story is that spatial navigation exercises the hippocampus, a region of the brain also closely linked with episodic memory, spatial reasoning, and other important functions. An overreliance on GPS means you don’t exercise the hippocampus and grey matter in that region shrinks. Use it or lose it as the saying goes. This leads to less brain power, a lesser feeling of self, and an increased risk of neural conditions such as Alzheimers.

As someone who enjoys navigation, I’m primed to accept this conclusion. We all like to think our hobbies and interests are good for you. But the more I think about it the less am convinced by the dire warnings.

After all, when the printing press was invented there was ample concern about the danger of books; how they don’t require you to remember things and weaken your memory. I’m sure if fMRI machines existed 500 years ago some enterprising brain scientist would have shown the undesired structural changes in the brain caused by excessive use of books.

I’m sure my memory isn’t nearly as good as a Roman orator’s but it also doesn’t need to be. In exchange I have access to more information than I ever could hope to absorb in a lifetime. and I like to think I make good use of it. Is GPS all that different?

Having a GPS greatly expands the areas that I’m able to conveniently explore after all, and is really an enabling technology for others. Obviously, I do see value in trying to navigate the world without satellite assistance. I find it helps place me physically within the landscape I inhabit and forces me to pay attention to things I wouldn’t notice otherwise. There is value in that. However, saying we shouldn’t ever use GPS is not the right approach. GPS is a tool, a resource, and just like so many other things can be abused and overused.

I’m reminded of a claim I heard once that the best chess player in the world is neither a computer nor a human, but a human working with a computer. I think the same methodology can be applied to many things including navigation. We shouldn’t seek to replace our minds with technology, but instead augment in such a way to utilize the strengths and weaknesses of each.

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I apologize for not providing sources here, but if you want to dig deeper into the psychological basis of navigation Wayfinding by J.R. O’Conner and From Here to There by Michael Bond are excellent jumping off points.  For more on computerized chess check out Garry Kasparov’s Deep Thinking.