I. The Lost Student
Tomorrow after this class, I am meeting my mother for lunch. When we spoke yesterday, I told her that she needed to choose a place that I have been to before. This is because last week my car was broken into and my portable GPS system was stolen. People were specifically targeting cars parked on the street with these gadgets. My window was broken and my car was looted. Now I am only able to go places that I have memorized how to get to. Since my loss, I have been restricted from finding new places to eat, visiting friends at colleges out of state, and partying. Before this incident, I was a fearless and constant traveler. One weekend I would be five and a half hours away in Concord, Massachusetts and the next I would be in Syracuse or Buffalo. Now I feel debilitated. Reluctant to spend hundreds of dollars on a new GPS system I go only to familiar places, mainly within the boundaries of Long Island and Manhattan. I miss having the ability to type any address into my GPS and be on the way to my destination within minutes, whether I have a clue where I am going or not. For someone with a self admitted poor sense of direction, the limited amount of places I can access by memory is more obvious. I need my kind and gentle Lola to announce street names to me and tell me to make a right turn in 0.2 miles. She is also the only one who doesn’t get mad when I undoubtedly make multiple wrong turns in a row and confuse my right and left. For now I remain stranded between places that I can locate by memory. The loss of my dear navigation system has left me feeling helpless, trapped and dependent. Why can’t I just use Mapquest? Why can’t I read a regular map? I suppose I could, if I weren’t too lazy. Like most consumers of portable GPS systems, I don’t want to think about where I am going. I guess I will have to wait to travel again until I can get a new one or borrow from a friend.
II. Where To Next?
The features of the newest portable GPS systems are extensive. The most basic feature is road directions, where you enter your destinations and the GPS guides you there using voice commands and written turn-by-turn directions. This allows you to access any destination in the United States that you have an address for. You don’t need to know a single thing, it warns you ahead of time of upcoming turns and street names. Another feature is some of the GPS systems is live traffic updates. You can adjust your current route to avoid traffic delays and maximize your driving time. In addition, many of the GPS systems have Bluetooth wireless capabilities. My favorite feature of my GPS system was its ability to locate nearby places of interest such as gas stations, hospitals, shopping, and places to eat. This allows you to locate the nearest facility to where you are, something especially helpful in emergencies and low food level situations. The other features are even more specialized. Some systems such as the newer Garmin system have “eco-route” a program that calculates the most fuel-efficient way to get to your destination. The “City Explorer” has directions for pedestrians, cyclists, and mass-transit users that allow users or every mode of transportation to find this product useful. This small, portable navigation system is easily used by anybody in a multitude of traveling situations. Apparently aware of the targeted theft of their products, some companies have anti-theft software for their portable GPS systems. Maybe if I had known that before looking up information for this paper I would have saved myself some hardship. Overall the simple to use and highly effective GPS systems have become a household product. The makers of theses systems have capitalized on peoples desires to travel as well as our affinity for life-simplifying technology. Marketing GPS systems as safety products has also led them to increase in popularity. Adding these specialized features allows the product to appeal to more people with different needs and interests.
III. Limitations of Unlimited Mobility
Personally, I consider the portable GPS system a godsend. I can go wherever I want, anytime I want to. I feel that I have been able to be more independent in that I have been able to single-handedly navigate my way to various places across the country. I can visit my friends much more often than I previously could. It has definitely helped me stay close to my friends from Union College, where I transferred from, and other out-of-state friends. If I make a wrong turn it’s not a problem. There is no need to retrace my steps, know which way is north, or even have a general idea of where I am going. I know my mom is a lot less fearful of me traveling alone in unfamiliar places. However, constantly relying on my GPS to get me places has made me unsure of how to get to even the most routine places without the aid of my GPS system. Instead of learning how to get to the various places that I frequent, I follow my GPS and pay little attention to where I am actually going. I don’t remember where I turned so that I can find my way back, I just look at what turn is coming up next and how many streets away it is. The more I use my GPS the more dependent I become on it. This has become a more noticeable problem when the GPS looses satellite service in an unfamiliar area. At this point, the driver who was relying exclusively on the GPS system for direction is now staring at a useless piece of equipment. Without a backup set of written directions or a map, this can, as I have personally discovered, leave you completely lost in the middle of nowhere. The feature that I mentioned to be my favorite is the one that tells you the closest place to eat, or get gas, or receive emergency care. While this can definitely be helpful in some situations, the limited number of sites and business listed on the GPS means that you are missing most of the locations your traveling through. While it is nice to know how many McDonalds are located within a five mile radius, it is no way to explore a new place. Experienced travelers will tell you that the best way to get to know a new place is to explore it for yourself, certainly not by hopping from one fast food chain to the next. People have come to rely more and more on this and other technology. What is often missed is how once helpful products can be overused. In this case, people feel that they have the power to go anywhere. In fact, we are more limited than ever in our knowledge of where we live and the places around us.
IV. A Nomadic People
The effect that our GPS systems have on us is that we depend on them to go practically everywhere. This dumbing-down of Americans is consistent with the effects of technology on us overall. We take a product that was meant to simplify certain aspects of our life and we become completely reliant on them. The ability to choose where we go without limitation and without much work is not only limited to physical traveling. Navigating the internet and finding information has been simplified and modeled to be fast and easy. We don’t realize how much we are actually missing by relying on others to do our work. Limiting sources to only the books that appear in full text on Google Books will guarantee that whatever research is being done is incomplete. Fast Food restaurants are the same way. They are convenient and useful in moderation but no one wants to eat Burger King for the rest of their life. It is great that we have all of these products and services that make tasks a lot simpler, but people would learn more from doing things on their own sometimes. The people who make these products are aware of how the public will use them. It is easy to see that Americans are constantly searching for ways to make their lives easier. Electronics producers, food service industries, and department stores have perfected this model. Smartfones and digital books put all of our information and communications in one small package. Just as navigation systems lead us to all choose the same route and common destinations, other technologies standardize how and what we consume. By purchasing all of these products and using them until dependency we create a society that is, in effect, completely helpless. Where will these GPS systems expand next? Maybe we will soon be able to watch DVDs or surf the internet while reading road directions. Then perhaps the dangers of such easily accessible technologies be more apparent.
Source:
http://www.garmin.com/garmin/cms/site/us
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