Overheard a guy at the coffee shop say his GPS made him stupider, and it hit weird

He told his friend he can't remember any street names since 2019 because the app just talks at him, and honestly I felt that after driving Uber in Austin for 6 months. Has anyone else noticed their sense of direction getting worse the more they rely on turn by turn?

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evant4822d ago

Man, that hits home. I read something a while back about how relying on GPS actually shrinks the part of your brain that handles spatial memory, like the hippocampus or whatever. It made me think of my buddy who can't even tell you which direction his own house faces anymore, he just follows the little blue dot. I still try to use landmarks when I'm driving around town, even if the app is on, just so I don't totally lose the map in my head. It's kind of scary when you think about it, we're basically outsourcing our sense of place to a computer.