We are doomed young people don't know directions

I live on a dead end road I can't count the times people can't figure out how to get to Crystal Lake so they stop if i'm in the yard. I tell them I don't know either because I don't go there.

I am the family navigator. When it's time to go, I'm the one who plots the course and knows how to get there. I tell my husband where to drive and let him figure out how to negotiate the traffic. We have that understanding worked out between us.

This past summer, we rented an SUV that had an on-board GPS and we trolled that poor thing. I set it for our trip, and we first took the back route to avoid the toll road. We sat there and laughed at it trying to tell us where to go to get us back on the toll road for the whole morning.

Then I used its detailed road maps in Denver to decide how to get where we were going, but I never actually paid much attention to its advice. In fact, we'd put it on mute by that point.

I don't understand people who can't read a map. It's not like it's all that hard. I won't claim I never get lost, and I do have a good sense of direction which helps. But the idea of using GPS as a crutch is foreign to me. Sure, it can be a useful tool to help you nail down where you might be at any given moment or to provide a more detailed look at your immediate area, but to depend on it as your only clue? No.

a reply to: ketsuko

Map reading is not a difficult skill.

Map folding on the other hand...

a reply to: Phage

Yeah, that's what those book atlases are for though. No folding.

originally posted by: mikell
I live on a dead end road I can't count the times people can't figure out how to get to Crystal Lake so they stop if i'm in the yard. I tell them I don't know either because I don't go there.

Ask them if they want a squirrel and watch their reaction next time.

It´s an insider joke

a reply to: ketsuko

Map books are good.

Page 27 C6.

Haven't used one in years though. Google Earth is better. You can see exactly what the driveway looks like.

Reminds me of that scene in City Slickers II:

Which way is North?

Up.

What?

North is always up on a map.

So every time you go up you are going North?

Right.

Okay, the sun sets in the East.

No, the sun sets in the West.

No, that's when you in the East. We're in the West now.We're past where the sun sets.

If you think we are past where the sun sets, then I am standing directly North of an idiot.

Right - up.

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: ketsuko

Map reading is not a difficult skill.

Map folding on the other hand...

Now THAT is funny...to those of us old enough to understand it. Touché.

originally posted by: lacrimoniousfinale
a reply to: JAGStorm

I often have to listen to colleagues giving directions to our office over the phone to people who need to visit us. They do so without reference to a starting point or direction, give instructions to "turn" without mentioning whether it is to the left or the right, and make no attempt to quantify the distances involved. It's a mystery how anyone finds us.

Because after they hang up, they plot their incoming route on MapQuest, Google Maps, etc.

Nonetheless. This is old people worries. There will be no EMP. This is the way of the world now.

"What if all the gas runs out! The kids these days don't know how to ride horses anymore"... the previous version of this old man ranting.

a reply to: okrian

Say what you want, the human mind can store so much information that it does not hurt to teach those skills.

If I still can, I´ll teach my grandkids to make fire, how to get clean water, bows&arrow, those pocket catapults ("schleuder"), what stuff not to eat and much more. Instead of them sitting in front of a TV they can as well be out in nature, have fun and learn something.

They will come into contact with electronic devices soon enough.

a reply to: JAGStorm

I've never understood over-reliance on GPS. I think I've been lost exactly 1 time in the US. And that was on the state highways in Georgia after following Yahoo maps directions. Maybe I'm lucky that if I've been to a place once, I pretty much remember how I got there. Even in the woods, as long as I know the time and can see the general direction of the sun, I'm pretty well off.

So yeah if kids don't know how to get home, cross streets and such in their neighborhood (which I can understand because so many kids are driven everywhere and never get a chance to explore on their bikes like we did) then I guess we are doomed.

originally posted by: okrian
Nonetheless. This is old people worries. There will be no EMP. This is the way of the world now.

"What if all the gas runs out! The kids these days don't know how to ride horses anymore"... the previous version of this old man ranting.

You may want to study up on weapons of war. There already exists EMP weapons that would be used before any nuclear because they don’t destroy the landscape with fallout, they just destroy all electronics, banking, markets, water, plumbing, electricity, etc. If you don’t think a successful EMP attack wouldn’t send the US back to the late 19th/early 20th century, at a minimum, I would argue you’re mistaken. By the way, an EMP would technically run all the gas out since all the digital pumps immediately stop. I know how to siphon gasoline, do you?

Yeah, I totally rely on my phone for navigation. However, I know how to follow street signs and have physical maps in my car. Bring on the EMP!

I'm one of those people who doesn't care for GPS, and doesn't use a Garmin or whatever's the tech du jour today. But I probably should, I suck at cardinal direction directions. N/S/E/W on XYZ street for ABC time/miles kind of stuff and translating old school maps to what's in front of you, I'm awful at it. That's how we ended up coming up from FL to MI via Indiana instead of Ohio. I'm not sure how I navigated my husband off I-75 with an old fashioned book of national maps, but I did.
It was a nice trip through a bunch of detours through Indianapolis, and corn field after corn field, but it wasn't the route we were supposed to take up here, lol.

And more locally, I still have no idea how TF we ended up on the east side of the Beltline in Grand Rapids one day, I don't recall crossing it to begin with from the west side of it. My husband was equally confused, "I was just turning where you said to, how the hell did we get here?!"

I dunno, man. Don't trust someone not good with cardinal directions to begin with to follow directions & use them competently.

a reply to: Phage

Unfortunately, that's exactly what too many of them would say.

Meanwhile, while playing those games, they have a disconcerting habit of stepping out into traffic.

a reply to: Phage

Better that, then them stepping in front of my car...

a reply to: Nyiah

I suck at navigation, too.

If the map says turn right at exit 192, I'll exit at 191 and turn left...invariably, at least once. Drives my passengers nuts...

originally posted by: seagull
a reply to: Nyiah

I suck at navigation, too.

If the map says turn right at exit 192, I'll exit at 191 and turn left...invariably, at least once. Drives my passengers nuts...

Thing is, I didn't used to be so bad at it. I used to be fairly average at navigating via maps & word-of-mouth directions, and I don't have tech reliance to blame for the downhill run.

a reply to: TheRedneck

I had the opposite happen. We were trying to find a location for a family reunion and my dad kept pulling out these maps id see my mom trying to fold them while he was driving. And i had to call him about 12 times to get him back on track. I finally got so frustrated i told him follow me or get lost i dont care. So after thus trip he now uses GPS. So i made a convert away from those stupid gas station maps.