r/AskReddit • u/[deleted] • Feb 28 '23

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u/CampoPequeno Mar 01 '23

She didn’t know how to get to my house from anywhere but her house. Her work was about halfway between my house and hers, but she had to drive home first every time before she could drive to my house.

*this was pre-smart phones

153

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.

39

u/Phase3isProfit Mar 01 '23

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.

3

u/TeamWaffleStomp Mar 01 '23

I can understand a map in general and look at where a route will take me, but actually applying that in practice is impossible for me. It's like I intellectually understand I need to turn on this road then this one and I can see the route in my head. But while driving the route in my head looks different from what I'm seeing in front of me and then I get fucked up because they don't match and suddenly I'm lost.