Why GPS ruins our brain

The bar to become an Uber driver is relatively weak: you must be 21 years old; you must have been driving for at least a year; a license and a social security number are required. Although a background check is required, nothing is noted about driving skills nor about understanding the space. Even basic questions about pbadenger safety are omitted, such as "Are you going to drive with your phone in your hand?"

Not so in London. Becoming a taxi driver requires three to four years of study to master what the government calls "knowing". Drivers fail about eleven times before getting their license; only half of the candidates are certified. There are 320 routes within a six mile radius of Charing Cross alone, and this is only recommended as a starting point. It makes sense that British taxi drivers want Uber out of town.

In a famous study on London taxi drivers, researchers found that they had an enlarged volume of gray matter in their hippocampus, the internal GPS of our brain. This region is responsible for space memory and navigation. (It should be noted that street knowledge does not translate into all forms of memory.)

The famous car ride in "European Vacation", ie the Griswold roller coaster ride – "Look at the kids, Big Ben! Parliament!" – might have upset the family, but Clark's seahorse was knocking down the buildings. It was a reader that he will probably never forget.

Clark's existential dilemma was the change of lane. For many of us, it 's just about going anywhere, a problem that the GPS is supposed to solve. Indeed, traveling with Waze makes travel easier than ever. But at what cost?

The reporter Mr. R. O. Connor believes that consumers are badly caught. The author of Orientation, a book about how we navigate our environments, says being run by an app makes you unconscious of landmarks, which creates negative consequences outside of your car.

This is your brain on the GPS

O 'Connor quotes a follow-up study in London. GPS-guided participants showed less activity in their hippocampus than those using landmarks to find their way, that is to say, discovering it by themselves.

The beauty of problem solving problems lies in the fact that they translate into several areas. The creation of more neural circuits in your seahorse not only benefits spatial orientation, but also Alzheimer's disease, because it is the first region of the brain to suffer damage. The first signs of dementia are short-term memory loss and disorientation, both of which are related to spatial orientation to a certain extent.

It boils down to new experiences combined with alertness to learn. As the O & # 39; Connor writing, navigability reaches its peak around 19, and we lose the habit with age.

Take the same route to work every day? A simple way to strengthen your hippocampus is to constantly experiment with new routes (for example, to lose yourself). What you lose over time, you gain in long-term cognitive health, including potentially avoiding depression and anxiety, mental health disorders that are partly affected by neurogenesis in your hippocampal circuit.

Marking is an ancient animal skill. We squeak when Saharan elephants discover their sterile water points; we contemplate the annual flamingo blender in Kenya. Animals are bound to survive. O & # 39; Connor argues that GPS destroys our sense of topophilia, "the love of place," a concept that Rebecca Solnit honors in her walking meditation, Spirit of adventurewhen she describes walks as "not a way to reach anywhere, but a way to be somewhere". Such a feeling can occur in new destinations as long as you look up from your phone.