Get off the Bandwagon Blog

Is map reading a dying art-form?

We here at Get Off The Bandwagon took a well-earned Bank Holiday trip to the zoo this weekend and noticed something rather interesting.

No, it wasn’t Sir David Attenborough hiding in the bushes speaking hushly about an exciting new type of Tiger cub, although it was in fact the discovery of a new breed of animal of a certain kind - the map-illiterate generation.

While taking in the delight of a rather oversized exotic bird trying desperately to fly (never fails to crack smile) we witnessed the following conversation on a mobile phone:

Man (aged around 25-30 with two kids): “Hiya mate, how far are you?”

- His mate on the other end of the phone replies -

Man: “Well you should’ve stayed on the motorway, it’s signposted straight from there.”

- His mate on the other end of the phone replies again, getting more frantic -

Man: “Postcode? Sh*t well I don’t know… Josh, JOSH, JOOOOOSHHH!! Give me that brochure. QUIICK!! Hang on there mate….”

And so ensues a mad scramble with a guide book from the zoo to find its address and therefore that all-important postcode that will – you’ve guessed it – magically transport his mate to the zoo via the miracle of Satellite Navigation.

To add even more hilarity to the situation, as the man had correctly pointed out, this zoo was indeed only a couple of miles from a major motorway and very clearly signposted all the way there – if, and here’s the thing – you knew roughly which junction to take of the highway.

Of course, here lies the point. To have known that the person in question would have had to have gone to all the trouble of opening a map and finding out what rough location he was expecting to travel to. Unfortunately though, with the rise of the Sat-Nav, it seems we have created a generation that are not only adverse to doing so, but may even not know how to use a map in the first place.

As stupid as it sounds, ponder for a second if you will the amount of visitors somewhere like Alton Towers has in a day, and then ask yourself how many of those visitors would know what county the themepark is in, or even the nearest big city to it. With the rise of the Sat-Nav it would seem more than most now simply tap in the postcode and go wherever the nice lady (or comedy character voice if they are particularly ‘wacky’) tells them to.

To be fair we fully champion the merits of the Sat-Nav, especially in big cities where the roads are complicated. But it is a worrying situation that the kids of today might grow up thinking that to get anywhere in the world instead of using a tiny bit of your own wonderful God-given brain, you instead simply get the computer woman to take you hand-in-hand all the way there.