Growing reliance on satellite navigation and Global Positioning System devices is creating a generation with little sense of direction, a U.K. scientist says.
Rosamund Langston, a behavioral neuroscientist at the University of Dundee, says drivers who use in-car computers to find their way around unfamiliar locations are neglecting a "caveman" ability to familiarize themselves with new terrain, The Daily Telegraph reported Thursday.
Langston, who has conducted a study into an "innate sense of direction," says using high-tech mapping solutions will have humans paying less attention to their surroundings and landmarks that aid our natural ability to find our way around.
"Having a visual reminder aides recognition and is likely to help when trying to remember a route or direction. It's probably the way we've been navigating the land since the caveman times," she says. "With GPS devices and the increase in popularity of high-tech navigational tools, we're doing less of this visual navigation which the earliest humans will have used expertly.
"If most of our time traveling through new areas is spent following a flashing arrow instead of looking out of the windows, we're not likely to know any more about the place for having been there," she says.
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