Before maps, people only knew their own neighborhood, says New Scientist (19 January, 2013). However, digital maps that are accessible on smartphones are customizing our needs which is transforming and influencing our world. One of the first efforts to digitalize maps was in 2001 when the UK’s Ordnance Survey published virtual versions of their paper products, entering the mainstream after Google listed businesses with small maps to locate them. Now there is a competitive rush to produce digital maps. And while the ocean remains mostly digitally uncharted, companies are now exploring that frontier to feature shipwrecks, shipping lanes, and other features.
As New Scientist says,
the most coveted territory is closer to home: the indoors. Navigation aids are
being developed so that people can find items in their own home or in a public
building, such as a store or library or museum. Floor plans are being listed
for airports, hospitals, train stations, and universities, to name a few
places.
Information on local
neighborhoods is very popular – such as restaurants, cafes, stores, traffic
lights, and even crime statistics. Real time information such as weather,
pollution, and traffic congestions are constantly being overlaid onto
neighborhood maps. Kat Austen, in the New Scientist article, writes “gaining
such an enhanced awareness of our surroundings could influence our decisions as
we navigate through the world.” She says information such as crime statistics,
house prices, restaurant reviews, travel reviews and local demographics may
influence where we choose to visit or even live. And she adds that “it could
discourage investment where it is needed” – such as in socially and financially
disadvantaged areas.
Another downside is that
maybe people trust the maps too much. There have been many instances of people
using virtual maps but getting lost – sometimes very lost, or dangerously lost
(such as in outback Australia).
The problem with digital
maps is “that it is difficult to know how they have been curated – and who,
what and where is left out.” Additionally, the interests of businesses may not
always align with the interests of individuals. However, due to the competitive
market, there are efforts to make digital maps more transparent and accurate.
Some allow people to edit information.
What is not yet clear is
how the digital maps influence the mind and our perception of the world. They “may
affect our ability to build maps in our minds.” Georg Gartner, a cartographer
at the Vienna University of Technology in Austria, and president of the
International Cartographic Association, argues that reading maps on cellphones
can affect our spatial cognition. Small screens mean that we view less of a map’s
context in a single view. In an experiment, Gartner found that people who used
a series of smaller maps to navigate through a city found it harder to orient
themselves in relation to landmarks compared with people who used a larger map
with more visible context. People using a cellphone map also struggled to
describe an accurate picture of their route.
Similarly, Toru Ishikawa
at the University of Tokyo in Japan, who compared navigational skills of
digital and paper map users on unfamiliar streets, found that those referring
to their smartphones travelled more slowly, walked longer distances, and were
worse at working out their orientation than those using a paper map. This is
because, when using a paper map, we have to make an effort to interpret our
location. If we don’t use these mental skills, our minds are in danger of
becoming less able to retain maps in our head, says Ishikawa. Gartner says, “a
map on a mobile device or in a navigation system leads to less accurate mental
maps and a lower ability to act in the real world.”
Hence, Kat Austen says
that digital maps on smartphones could make us “duller, less questioning and
more unadventurous.”
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