A Sense of Direction

We use Google Maps all the time. Does this matter? Yes.

Who knows what sights Google Maps might cause you to miss?

Last month I moved to Bristol. Within the city I found myself seeking out the green spaces. One of these was Brandon Hill, which sits near to the centre. I walked up it one late summer morning. At the hill’s summit I stood by Cabot Tower, which you can climb some days to look down at the panoramic views. The tower was closed that day, but even from its foot I had a good view of the southern stretches of the city, and the heat-hazed hillsides beyond.

Looking at the city like this, I found myself thinking about maps. Not having lived here before, I’d been relying on them heavily to get myself around. By maps, I really mean my phone, and by that I mean Google Maps. I had traced myself in blue dot form across the city for the last couple of weeks, and the more I found myself doing it, the more it unsettled me.

Maps help us to gain an understanding of a place. We can see where we are, and what is beyond, laid out in front of us. Suburb or moorland, town or village, forest or city park: whatever they show, maps give us a sense of how places connect to one another. The understanding that they give us may only be partial, because there are many things – sound, smell, touch – that cannot be easily mapped, but they are still highly valuable in enabling us to grow familiar with a place.

You can still find 'em - paper maps require us to make sense of the landscape around us and place ourselves within it.

I moved from Cabot Tower to a nearby bench. Squirrels chased one another just beyond my feet, and a blackbird flew to the ground before blurring out of sight into a nearby yew tree. A robin pecked at crumbs dropped by a nearby bench. I watched all this, but I wasn’t really focused on it. I was thinking about a radio programme I’d heard, its cheesy name of One Direction belying the more serious tone of its content. Presented by the historian Jerry Brotton, the programme explored the four cardinal directions and the way they have shaped humanity. The first episode discussed the idea of disorientation, and how the likes of Google Maps are leading to a more egocentric way of mapping and positioning ourselves. The first thing I see when I load Google Maps on my phone is me – represented by a blue dot. Whereas on a traditional paper map I would first have to locate relevant landmarks and street names before positioning myself within the map’s landscape, my phone puts me at the centre of things straight away. I type in my destination, and off I go, guided all the way by the dotted blue line on the screen.

Often, this can be helpful. Google Maps can be a valuable tool. But this does not take away from the fact that an overreliance on it can be problematic – as I had discovered through using it so much during my first few weeks in Bristol. Looking down at my phone screen, I was only seeing what was nearby, or what lay upon my chosen route, rather than taking in the whole area and fitting myself within it.

By simply being guided from A to B, I found my eyes mainly moving from the screen to what was ahead and then back down again. I was focusing simply on where I needed to go and, machine-like, discounted anything that wasn’t relevant to my chosen journey. I didn’t take in my surroundings in the way I might if I was not using my phone. The consequence of this was that I was losing so much. Or to put it another way, missing out on things that could make the journey a deeper, richer experience.

*

There are a couple of obvious problems with using Google Maps. The first of these is that by focusing on where your phone is telling you to go, you are less likely to take in what is around you. The people, the places, the fast-moving little vignettes of life which make cities what they are: all these have the potential to be missed because what you are doing has been reduced to moving from A to B. Google Maps’ focus on time, telling you down to the exact minute how long it will take you to get to your destination, reduces a journey on foot – with all the potential for joy and for interest that holds – to something that is simply a matter of efficiency. The blue dot has no time for meanderers. It cannot comprehend distraction or discovery.

*

My experience of running in Bristol has offered a contrast to this Maps-guided experience. When I run, it isn’t practical to constantly check my phone. So when I set out, I pre-plan a route, holding landmarks or street names in my head. Or I simply hope for the best. I try to stay aware of where I am in relation to my house, keep a mental image of the ground I have covered in my mind. I look at what is around me and even if, at times, I am not precisely sure where I am, I have always stumbled upon somewhere I do know and from there can find my way home. A sense of direction, forced on me from necessity, helps me to get back on familiar ground.

There's nothing wrong with making navigational mistakes. In fact, they can be a massive benefit.

The experience of running my way around my local area, phone-less, has taught me several things. That you see and notice much more, and so the journey is made more interesting. That by sometimes making mistakes, and going in the wrong direction, your understanding of a place is enhanced, even if you do experience a minor inconvenience. That being free of Google Maps means I engage far more actively with my sense of direction and so, far more swiftly than if I had phone in hand, I build up a far better, more intricate sense of the city.

My experience of running through the city had helped me understand what my experience of walking it was lacking. How to solve this problem? The solutions, I worked out, are simple enough. Plan routes in advance. Note landmarks, street names. Carry a paper map. While at times you might be forced to use Google Maps, by eschewing it where you can, your experience of travel – whether it be walking, running, cycling – will be vastly improved. Journeys will become less about getting somewhere as fast as possible, and more about understanding a place better. You can create your own routes, have a greater sense of control over your journey. As a good friend put it, travelling routes given to you by Google Maps all the time is like learning sentences of a language off by heart without really understanding them. In a world where everything seems to be focused on efficiency and minimisation, a more rambling experiential sense of travel is no bad thing.

Back on Brandon Hill, I stood up from my bench. It was time to go to work – about ten minutes’ walk away. I took out my phone, almost instinctively, and then stopped. Put it away again. I had fifteen minutes before I was meant to arrive. Better to look about, take things in, rather than arrive with time to spare, but experience deprived.

If you want to listen to the episode of One Direction I wrote about, you can find it here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0016h2w. All copyright etc belongs to the BBC.