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Opinions
Ditch the GPS. It鈥檚 ruining your brain.
By M.R. O'Connor
June 5 at 5:56 PM
M.R. O鈥機onnor is a journalist who writes about science, technology and ethics, and is the author, most
recently, of 鈥淲ayfinding: The Science and Mystery of How Humans Navigate the World.鈥�
It has become the most natural thing to do: get in the car, type a destination into a smartphone, and let an
algorithm using GPS data show the way. Personal GPS-equipped devices entered the mass market in only the
past 15 or so years, but hundreds of millions of people now rarely travel without them. These gadgets are
extremely powerful, allowing people to know their location at all times, to explore unknown places and to avoid
getting lost.
But they also affect perception and judgment. When people are told which way to turn, it relieves them of the
need to create their own routes and remember them. They pay less attention to their surroundings. And
neuroscientists can now see that brain behavior changes when people rely on turn-by-turn directions.
In a study published in Nature Communications in 2017, researchers asked subjects to navigate a virtual
simulation of London鈥檚 Soho neighborhood and monitored their brain activity, specifically the hippocampus,
which is integral to spatial navigation. Those who were guided by directions showed less activity in this part of
the brain than participants who navigated without the device. 鈥淭he hippocampus makes an internal map of the
environment and this map becomes active only when you are engaged in navigating and not using GPS,鈥� Amir-
Homayoun Javadi, one of the study鈥檚 authors, told me.
The hippocampus is crucial to many aspects of daily life. It allows us to orient in space and know where we are
by creating cognitive maps. It also allows us to recall events from the past, what is known as episodic memory.
And, remarkably, it is the part of the brain that neuroscientists believe gives us the ability to imagine ourselves
in the future.
Studies have long shown the hippocampus is highly susceptible to experience. (London鈥檚 taxi drivers famously
have greater gray-matter volume in the hippocampus as a consequence of memorizing the city鈥檚 labyrinthine
streets.) Meanwhile, atrophy in that part of the brain is linked to devastating conditions, including posttraumatic
stress disorder and Alzheimer鈥檚 disease. Stress and depression have been shown to dampen
neurogenesis 鈥� the growth of new neurons 鈥� in the hippocampal circuit.
What isn鈥檛 known is the effect of GPS use on hippocampal function when employed daily over long periods of
time. Javadi said the conclusions he draws from recent studies is that 鈥渨hen people use tools such as GPS, they
tend to engage less with navigation. Therefore, brain area responsible for navigation is less used, and
consequently their brain areas involved in navigation tend to shrink.鈥�
How people navigate naturally changes with age. Navigation aptitude appears to peak around age 19, and after
that, most people slowly stop using spatial memory strategies to find their way, relying on habit instead. But
neuroscientist V茅ronique Bohbot has found that using spatial-memory strategies for navigation correlates with
increased gray matter in the hippocampus at any age. She thinks that interventions focused on improving
spatial memory by exercising the hippocampus 鈥� paying attention to the spatial relationships of places in our
environment 鈥� might help offset age-related cognitive impairments or even neurodegenerative diseases.
鈥淚f we are paying attention to our environment, we are stimulating our hippocampus, and a bigger
hippocampus seems to be protective against Alzheimer鈥檚 disease,鈥� Bohbot told me in an email. 鈥淲hen we get
lost, it activates the hippocampus, it gets us completely out of the habit mode. Getting lost is good!鈥� Done
safely, getting lost could be a good thing.
Saturated with devices, children today might grow up to see navigation from memory or a paper map as
anachronistic as rote memorization or typewriting. But for them especially, independent navigation and the
freedom to explore are vital to acquiring spatial knowledge that may improve hippocampal function. Turning
off the GPS and teaching them navigational skills could have enormous cognitive benefits later in life.
There are other compelling reasons outside of neuroscience to consider forgoing the GPS.
Over the past four years, I鈥檝e spoken with master navigators from different cultures who showed me that
practicing navigation is a powerful form of engagement with the environment that can inspire a greater sense
of stewardship. Finding our way on our own 鈥� using perception, empirical observation and problem-solving
skills 鈥� forces us to attune ourselves to the world. And by turning our attention to the physical landscape that
sustains and connects us, we can nourish 鈥渢opophilia,鈥� a sense of attachment and love for place. You鈥檒l never get
that from waiting for a satellite to tell you how to find a shortcut.
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