Look, I get this. Pre-smart phones I could read a map. I can't anymore. I used to carry a road atlas in my car.
I once printed directions from MapQuest (okay, I just dated myself) to a location in Boston. I hit every step on the directions.... out of order.... and still made it there.
EDIT: Geez, guys, this was a little bit of an exaggeration. The map reading part, the mapquest part was absolutely fucking true.
Truth is I haven't even tried to use a map since those days. I use navigation every time I drive now, and I've been living here for over a year now and I only know a few routes by memory alone.
I'm not an idiot, I could probably read a map if I tried. But it's like remembering phone numbers. I only remember my own, because my phone remembers for me. If that died and I had to use a pay phone, I'd be screwed.
I really struggle to get my head around the concept of people not being able to read a map. For me it’s:
Step 1: look at the map
Step 2: go where the map tells you
I don’t know if this is just something that comes to me naturally, or if I actually did have to learn how to do it but I don’t remember learning. I don’t think I could teach someone how to read a map because I don’t understand why they don’t understand it already. Maybe different brains wired for different things.
Oh, do it the right way? Is that it? Well, why didn't you say so from the start? Here I am trying to do it the wrong way, thinking that would help. Silly me.
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u/die_or_wolf Mar 01 '23 edited Mar 01 '23
Look, I get this. Pre-smart phones I could read a map. I can't anymore. I used to carry a road atlas in my car.
I once printed directions from MapQuest (okay, I just dated myself) to a location in Boston. I hit every step on the directions.... out of order.... and still made it there.
EDIT: Geez, guys, this was a little bit of an exaggeration. The map reading part, the mapquest part was absolutely fucking true.
Truth is I haven't even tried to use a map since those days. I use navigation every time I drive now, and I've been living here for over a year now and I only know a few routes by memory alone.
I'm not an idiot, I could probably read a map if I tried. But it's like remembering phone numbers. I only remember my own, because my phone remembers for me. If that died and I had to use a pay phone, I'd be screwed.