Researchers reveal why depending on a GPS may be bad for your health
Time to fess up -- millions of drivers would be lost without GPS navigation, and we know you're one of them.
According to the New York Times, researchers say the human mind is good at developing "mental maps" of an area, and with more practice, the skill can grow stronger.
Julia Frankenstein, a psychologist at the Center for Cognitive Science at the University of Freiburg, says with an increased dependency on GPS, our minds lose the ability to use and create mental maps.
The Boston Globe reports researchers found that becoming overly reliant on GPS might be bad for our minds because generating mental maps plays a role in other daily activities.
A recent study in the U.K. states that a quarter of drivers there use navigation out of habit even on routes they used to take without any help.
Half of the respondents say they zone out and barely read road signs while using the GPS.
A video released by Mytaxi shows a clueless cab driver trying to navigate through the city. When the driver's GPS malfunctioned, he couldn't navigate through the city. His mental map appeared to be non-existent, and he couldn't take any of the passengers to their locations.
He probably should have at least asked for directions, but we all know how men can be!
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