In a recent interview with mega-Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings, Time magazine’s Belinda Luscombe asked about our growing dependency on GPS maps. The context was Jennings’ new book, Maphead, which is subtitled, Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks.
Her question: “Does it bother you that we use maps much less now that we have GPS devices?”
His answer:
"I think it's making us dumber. Sure, I have a cell phone, so I don't have to remember everyone's number anymore, but that wasn't really a core part of my brain. If I start outsourcing all my navigation to a little talking box in my car, I'm sort of screwed. I'm going to lose my car in the mall parking lot every single time."
But it’s the next question that inspired me to write this blog post: “Do you have a GPS in your car?” Jennings replies, “I do. I have condemned my kids to a lifetime of geographic illiteracy.”
So forget about maps and technology and Jeopardy! for a minute. Think instead about how we all manage to so often do exactly what Jennings did: We get up on our high horse about something. We complain about something. We despair over something. And all the while we’re using/doing/consuming that very thing we say we hate. It’s the Wall Street protestors who, it’s been pointed out, are all decked out with corporate paraphernalia while they chant against the corporations that manufactured it. It’s us bemoaning the sordid state of Hollywood … and then planning a guy’s night out to go see the latest Jason Statham flick.
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