navigating
I use Google Maps to drive to most places, even those that are pretty close by. I've come to rely on it; I don't ever really plan out my route before getting in the car.
It does do that thing though on most journeys at least once where it'll tell you to come off the road to the left, but no, not yet. Get in the left lane - no, not that left lane, the left lane after the road has split!
Ultimately, as a result of relying too heavily on the technology, it tends to take me longer (as a result of taking wrong turns) than it would have if I took a few moments to plan the route beforehand. Even though it does a great job a large proportion of the time, the impact when it does give misleading advice about a junction is typically pretty high in terms of time wasted. That wrong turn could send me on a diversion that might take 5-15 minutes to rectify.
I think by delegating out the navigation and taking less of an active role in it (i.e. being more aware of signs and markings, or even landmarks), I don't retain that information as well for next time I drive that route. I think that typically helps me avoid making wrong turns even if I do have the sat-nav on.
I think the problem when a technology like this works 99% of the time, a switch kind of flips and you just trust it entirely, even if in those 1% of cases the time lost basically cancels all of the time you saved by not putting some time and prep in at the beginning and being more mentally engaged with the task.
Perhaps there is still time to be saved in the long term by using a hybrid approach - do the prep beforehand, maybe even drive the route once or twice without the app, then use it for future runs. Is there any real point in having it on at that stage though?
Or how about this - use the app to find the route before you leave, memorise it at a high level, and then put your phone away to do the actual driving? It saves you having to dig static (physical or otherwise) maps out, but then you get the benefits from being more engaged in the task at hand and are less likely to make errors on the finer details.
Thanks for reading my post about LLM-assisted programming.