The Difference Between Assistance and Dependence

Research on GPS navigation suggests that turn-by-turn directions can reduce the need to form and retain a mental map of a route. The convenience is real, but the skill we outsource may become less practised.

A person can arrive at a familiar destination while barely remembering the route. The journey has become easier, but the place itself may have become less familiar.

It isn't about how often you use something. It's about whether the underlying capacity is still there, dormant and ready to be called on, or whether it has had less practice while the tool carried the weight instead.

A phone full of faces staring downward doesn't tell you which is which, from the outside. Some of those people could navigate home without the app tonight.

Others might need more help. I'm trying to notice where a convenience sits on the spectrum between assistance and dependence, since the shift is rarely dramatic and often goes unnoticed until the tool is gone.

The loss, when it finally shows up, tends to arrive quietly, in the exact moment the tool isn't there to catch it. I'd rather notice that moment while it's still small, long before it becomes the kind of gap only a real emergency reveals.

I've started testing myself occasionally, phone in my pocket, seeing if the route is still mine without it. Some days it is.

Some days I notice, with real unease, that it isn't anymore.