Be wary of technology without understanding the principles behind it

So a while back my Dad got a GPS unit for hiking and he has started using it a little for driving as well. The other day I asked him if he thought that people had become so dependent on GPS to get them where they are going that they were losing their direction skills and ability to read a map. His response was that even if they are, it isn't a big deal. And he compared it to the dependence on calculators which I disagreed with touting several examples of when I have needed to be able to do math in my head or understand the principles behind what my calculator was doing to realize that my calculator had not given me an answer that made sense with what I was trying to do.

Yesterday, I traveled with my in-laws who had recently purchased a GPS unit and had been just raving over it. To prepare for our trip, my father-in-law just wrote down the addresses of the places we were going. So we head off after typing in the first address and I listen as they try and figure out the route the GPS might take us, a route, I would not have chosen as it spent little time on freeways and significant time on roads littered with stop lights every half mile. Then as we continue to another place, the address is typed in, and the address could not be found (or maybe it was not typed in accurately) so we had to choose an address it suggested for us hoping it was something close. It then sent us on back roads, making turn after turn. And all the time not sure of where it was sending us. Add to that all the fumbling with the GPS unit as the driver is driving made worse by the fact that no one was all that familiar with the unit yet.

So then I wake up this morning and there are two blog posts in my Google Reader and after reading them both, I couldn't help but laugh at how appropriately timed they were.

The first post was by Prof. James Edward Maule in his blog "MauledAgain". He primarily writes about tax law. Today's post was entitled "Why the Nation Needs Tax Education." First he discusses several posts with citizens highly debating whether Obama would have to pay federal income tax on his Nobel Peace Prize award and how the answer was so clear in federal tax code yet people had no understanding of it even when made available to them. However, then in the 10th paragraph he mentions my whole point of dependence on technology when he blames the lack of understanding of the federal tax system on tax preparation software and tax preparers (who usually use tax preparation software as well). US citizens have become so accustomed to TurboTax and the like that just asks us questions and does our taxes for us to the point where so many would not be able to figure their taxes out by hand even with all the resources necessary.

The second post was by Tom Kuntz in his New York Times blog "Idea of the Day". His post today was titled "Can GPS Help Your Brain Get Lost?" and discussed how GPS may eventually contribute to dementia as the dependence on it eliminates the use of the skill that gives us direction and allows us to understand abstract concepts spatially. Which makes perfect sense to me as I watched the GPS tell us to make turn after turn without any need to understand where locations were located.

So my advice to everyone is to be wary of technology that replaces your need to think as it may affect you greatly in the future.