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Comment by kypro | Hacker News Reader

Something I find really fun when traveling in the car with kids is to give them a paper map and ask them to plan a route a for us to get to our destination. Then when you're driving ask them to follow along and give the directions.

Obviously they can't be too young and they're not going to be perfect, but if you have a child around 7-13 they'll probably find this quite fun.

Being able to use a map is one of those skills which admittedly isn't all that useful today, but I still think it's fun to plan out your own routes and decide the kinds of roads you'd like to take and the places you'd like to pass on your way from A to B. Plus, there are so many times my phone has died or my GPS has randomly stopped working and I'm glad I have my paper map with me just in case.

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On our last road trip, I gave our 4 year old a printed map with the route highlighted and lettered milestones every hour or so. I was hoping to give a sense of scale (how far away are we, how far we do we travel in a certain time, etc.) that's harder to convey with a digital map. It also worked to practice letters and cardinal directions (we're at K, what's the next letter? the road turns at M, which direction will we be going now?). It worked rather well, but probably because he got a gummy bear at each waypoint.

> It worked rather well, but probably because he got a gummy bear at each waypoint.

truth :)

The flippant attitude that people have towards map-reading today is appalling. Maybe its the eagle scout in me but how can someone NOT want to learn to read a map? It isn't even that hard! What happens if your device fails you?

+1.

Not an Eagle Scout, and have mixed feeling on scouting as an org at this point, but I'm very grateful to have learned how to read maps properly.

I've always been a bit surprised by the sentence "learn to read a map". What is there to learn exactly?

Looking at a map and doing basic a->b route planning is straightforward. Doing it well is a skill. Finding yourself when you don't know where you are and have limited landmark info, and using the cartographically-significant features of the map to plan a route that avoids hazards or navigates with tolls, highways, and rest-stops in mind are very much a skill that needs to be practiced even if the MO is simple at first.

I feel like we're diverging towards trip planning here more than just reading a map. That, sure i can see how experience can make a difference.

Given a map, can you find where you are in the map without GPS?

How about planning a route from contour plots?

Or maybe figure out which direction you should go without a digital compass?

Yes to all. The map is a projection of your surroundings. You just need to "map" what you see to the map to be able to see where you are and where north is. I guess contour plots is a tad more advanced since it's trying to represent the z axis on a flat sheet of paper.

I'm not trying to be obtuse, I genuinely don't see how it is difficult to read a map.

> You just need to "map" what you see to the map to be able to see where you are and where north is.

Well, you have provided a neat definition of map reading. :)

I know lol that's why I'm not sure how it is difficult or something to learn really.

I guess your mention of representation of elevation made me realize that you at least need to learn the conventions and the key to a map.

>I know lol that's why I'm not sure how it is difficult or something to learn really.

Imagine how easy recursion is to grok for most of us and absurdly painful for most people trying to learn programming.

Yes, yes, and yes. All basic skills any hiker should have.

Back before ubiquitous smart phones, I had a (now ex) partner who I discovered couldn't read a map to save their life. I printed out the Google maps route to the nearest Target (we had just moved to a new city) and was surprised when they couldn't give me directions based on the map because I didn't also print out the turn by turn directions (which I considered a redundant waste of paper).

I think that incident was what made me realize that map reading was a skill that actually needed to be learned.

It is incredible how much of the human mind is centered around orientation and direction. It makes sense from an evolutuonary perspective, but there have been studies about how quickly the skill atrophies without use.

I believe it is a valuable skill to maintain or develop. Kids most obviously develop it now through games like Minecraft, but I wouldn't be surprised if there is a correlation between navigational skills and general memory ability.

Don't even get me started on the compass :/ the coddling that our technological advances provide are erasing entire swaths of generation intellectual wealth.

I'm also an eagle scout. Taught the orienteering merit badge for years.

But secret: I have the absolute WORST sense of direction. I have no internal sense of orientation or distance. Seriously I get lost if I turn left out of the corner store instead of right. I can read a map with a compass and straight-edge and find where I am based on triangulation. But once I actually have to make realtime decisions using little more than a map I get anxious and frustrated, I usually just give up and look for landmarks or one-way streets that I can find and follow. Or hope that my phone's terrible compass and navigation-hostile map programs work. (Can we talk about map apps not even showing street names or one-way directions without having to pan and zoom all over the map?)

Even if you know how to read a map, they're just not a very good UX for finding where you are and making minor course-corrections in realtime.

Even before mapquest was a thing, I was recording directions from paper maps as if it was. Sure, I'd have a map open if I were driving in an area I was unfamiliar with, but I'd also write a list of roads and exits.

The only real major advantage that gps systems have over the list method is that they can tell you when you're near an exit. Back in the early 00s I was driving to New Orleans from Dallas on a particularly foggy night and I missed the same exit 3 times because I could barely make out the exit signs.

Funny story - I was at Disney for new year's, and Disney parks have an impressive mapping app, but phones aren't great at detecting your heading when you're not at driving speed and the walking directions mode was awful. As a result, it was basically a dumb map with lots of excellent live data on it and a "you are here" dot.

A lot of people were having trouble with it because we're all used to "turn left here" instead of the top-view get-your-bearings go-that-way approach to a map.

When I was 12 I was the "navigator" using state rest stop maps on a 14 hour drive with my Grandfather. It's a great memory.

Even with a map on your phone, it's useful to have some map reading skills so you can get a good idea of where you are and where you need to go without relying on turn-by-turn navigation which can sometimes catch you off guard or malfunction.

I navigated a cross-country road trip when I was 14. Absolutely a great way to learn about maps, traveling, time estimation.

The younger kid version of this - I ask my four-year-old if we should turn or go straight (at places where I know either way will work). She also keeps looking at maps and pretending she knows how to make sense of them, so maybe I should work with her on that.

> Being able to use a map is one of those skills which admittedly isn't all that useful today

I've met people who constantly get completely lost despite the use of the phone.

The issue with the phone is that especially under rain or trees, the position can be off of several hundreds meters, so you have to look around and find yourself on the map, because the phone really has no idea and is just guessing.

The compass thingy also works terribly on android and iphones alike, but for some reason people still think that if the arrow points a certain way, you can actually trust it.

The phone compass often works poorly near magnetic metal (which is… often). Once you start moving it will calibrate itself, but that can take a block or two of moving in a straight line in an urban area.

Mounting your phone on the windshield helps with GPS some, as does getting a newer phone with L5 GPS.

A lot of cars have the option to display a map on the radio screen, so I'm kinda surprised. I love using that thing! I always have an idea of the alternative streets available when I'm stuck in traffic because it's always there.

I had a rental car in LA once that couldn't decide if I was on the freeway, the off-ramp or the surface street nearby. It spent a good 10 minutes constantly telling me to make impossible turns or even U-turns before I turned it off and relied on my general sense of the area from previous visits and road signage.

GPS is great when it works and downright dangerous when it doesn't.

an interesting thought experiment is to ponder just how many skills are being lost due to technology. I know how to read a map and how to find rough compass bearings but i was never in a situation where i needed either skill. Could i manage without GPS - probably but i’m not confident.

If GPS died tomorrow because of a solar flare, would the younger generations manage?

https://www.gislounge.com/spatial-orientation-and-the-brain-...

Studies have shown that people just cannot read maps anymore due to dependence on GPS apps in their daily lives.

But doesn’t mean they won’t learn the next thing if it’s gone.

Forget about maps and navigation, I just wish all the people obliviously using their phones in public had the spatial awareness to realize they exist in a shared space and take up physical volume. Think sidewalks, roads, etc.

That's odd to me. Even when using GPS I'm always looking at the map to figure out what the upcoming turns are because I have zero faith in the accuracy of the voice directions and arrows. Do people just follow the directions without understanding the route on the map?

>Do people just follow the directions without understanding the route on the map?

Most people I know do that.

I almost always look at a preview of the GPS route and try to understand the gist of the directions before I start driving. I build a narrative like "2 left turns, 1 right, then driving for quite awhile before taking an exit". It helps my mental model of the areas of town and how they connect.

I exclusively use the map and never use voice direction or arrows. Everyone I've mentioned this to or has seen me do it thinks I'm weird for doing so, so I'd say it's uncommon.

I find it a lot easier as I have a mental picture of things.

Even if they are accurate, sometimes the voice directions don't give enough lead time if you need to change lanes.

One of the many things we unlearn or never learn because of the „smart“ phone

I think people could re-learn they skill pretty quickly, but putting that aside, I wonder how well we could do with just ground based stuff. We’d still have triangulation via cell towers, which was widely used not that long ago. Also I wonder how well we could do with a modern cellphone using image recognition on the road signs paired with a really accurate map of the roads.

Great idea!

Old marine maps had various landmarks on them, along with their height. This allowed you to get angle and distance, giving you the opportunity to calculate position with pen and paper even if you only had a single landmark in view.

Not just old marine maps -- modern marine charts have the same. They mark radio towers, grain silos, etc. because although GPS is widely-used, the old navigation techniques are still important.

I believe the U.S. Naval Academy actually stopped teaching old school celestial navigation for a while, then someone with a bit of common sense realized that there were scenarios (particularly in a war situation) where the GPS constellation might not be available, and started teaching it again.

You can't just pull over at a gas station in the middle of the Pacific Ocean and ask for directions. :-)

People are completely dependend on GPS but also might not use it as often as you would think. First time planning a route to some new job/home/friend requires GPS but after that I'll do everything on autopilot. Proximity to existing routes also massively reduces complexity.

In general, I think our adaptation has significantly increased our ability to navigate at the minor cost of using either the map and compass or the new gps and advanced map data.

My GF has been telling about how there's a lot kids at her school that don't know how to tell the time on analogue clocks anymore.

She says it's because kids don't interact with analogue clocks much anymore and Covid lockdowns meant that a lot of kids never learnt it in school either. So apparently there is now a generation of kids who are around 10 - 12 who have no idea how to read the time from an analogue clock.

One of my memory is to learn reading time on analogue watch from my uncle as a kid.

On one hand, I get the concern about this because mechanical clocks still exist, familiarity informs me that they're easy to read, and nostalgia tells me they're important.

On the other hand, they are unintuitive, less common with every passing year, and I'd rather my children get any recess than add "learn to use another antiquated tool" into the school curriculum. I do complicated math for a living, but nobody's offended that I didn't ever get good at using a slide rule.

Ten years after the slide rule calculator came out, the physical slide rules had virtually disappeared. Clock with hands show no signs of disappearing. Sundials on the other hand are safe to ignore.

> Clock with hands show no signs of disappearing.

I can't remember the last time I saw someone with a mechanical watch other than as a fashion statement.

25 years ago, my household had mechanical alarm clocks, a mechanical clock on the oven, and multiple mechanical clocks on the walls of different rooms. Today, I think I might have a broken mechanical watch in my "you should probably fix these things" piles.

I cannot speak for everyone, but my elementary school had analog clocks (which kids learned to read) while maintaining recess, art, music and gym.

Having taught math to children, analog clocks are a great way to learn and apply fractions. I suspect that children's inability to read analog clocks tracks pretty well with their abysmal math skills, like fractions.

So maybe we don't "add" analog clocks to the school curriculum, but we instead replace some nonsense with analog clocks and fractions.

A year of school is already dedicated to fractions.

Kids were bad at fractions even before digital clocks.

Is that abnormal? I remember not being able to read an analog clock at that age, several decades ago. Even back then they were uncommon.

My parents required me to have an analog watch as my first watch. We did the same for our kids.

Where we are, analog time-telling is a required part of the (common core) curriculum. So kids would have to learn it in school, though not necessarily internalize it for long enough that it would stick in the long run.

I think GPS is best thought of as "directions as a service" (demand defaulting to JIT).

What would probably happen is that people would start asking for / giving directions again; my impression is that maps have usually been secondary to this ad hoc social process of informal directions, and it would probably re-emerge.

I don’t know if this is true for older generations, but for myself and many of my zoomer and millennial friends barely know street names making giving or receiving directions much harder.

Personally I rarely rely on turn-by-turn navigation but instead look at the map before hand and take a mental map of the directions to get there.

I always try to build a mental map of whatever area I'm traveling to. Even if only the major highways and arterials. My GenZ son is fully reliant on GPS to go anywhere he hasn't been at least three times before. While I'm sure he could build a mental map if he needed to, it's not something he does because he's never had to.

He also has no concept of road names. I was describing the route I would take when he needed to travel across the Seattle metro one time and any road other than I-5 was a complete unknown to him. It's a little scary to me.

That's interesting. Are you saying many people you know don't usually check street signs against the name of the streets the GPS directs users to? I know that's my reflex when I have readable street signs, but I guess I have no idea what portion of people rely on that vs the "feel" of how close the turn is from the visual representation on-screen (which I use sometimes too, but don't like relying on since it often lags a bit) or other cues.

Not quite, but maybe, I don’t talk to my friends about how they interact with gps directions. I’m saying that when giving verbal directions knowledge of street names aren’t generally shared equally. I know my knowledge of street names when im giving directions for the city I’ve lived in for almost 2 years is not great. I also commute by bicycle and don’t rely on GPS, just navigating by special awareness mostly.

Yes they will learn quickly as I did before gps

This is answer to a lot of question. The fact that people are dependent on some technology today does not mean that they will be non-functional when that it is taken from them. People adopt very quickly.

> If GPS died tomorrow because of a solar flare, would the younger generations manage?

I learned to read maps when I was like 10; maybe younger. It's not that hard. I'm pretty sure they'll pick it up plenty fast enough when required.

The real problem with a map shortages and scalpers selling maps for fucktillion dollars.

Ah scalpers, the true issue that will cause the death of our civilization.

Your thought reminds me of Socrates' quote on how writing makes people not use their memory.

I distinctly remember my parents, before satellite navigation systems were common (let alone phones) having endless arguments over bad map reading when on family trips.

It's not a skill that was lost to technology, it's a skill that most people never mastered even before we all had GPS systems in our pockets.

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