“I Never Use ‘Maps’ Anymore”: Engaging with Sat Nav Technologies and the Implications for Cartographic Literacy and Spatial Awareness

Abstract

It is somewhat paradoxical that at a time of widespread and increasing adoption of Satellite Navigation (Sat Nav) technologies of wayfinding, geographic and cartographic research has engaged very little with issues relating to their impact on spatial awareness and cartographic literacy. Through exploration of geography students’ engagements with Sat Nav, we investigate how these latest forms of wayfinding technologies are influencing choice and methods of navigation and how they affect attitudes towards more ‘traditional’ forms of maps and map use. We explore engagement in terms of what geography students know about, feel towards, and achieve with, Sat Nav technologies. Principally, Sat Nav is not seen as a ‘map’ but as something different and distinctive. This, in turn, has implications for how people navigate, how they relate to the places and spaces around them and for their spatial cognition and ‘map-reading’ abilities

Navigating our way through the research-teaching nexus

“…The incentive to actively develop this research was reinforced by the outcomes of the questionnaire survey of new Level 4 students (the same as the one conducted in 2010 and 2011), which revealed that use of smart phones or other Sat Nav-enabled mobile phones for navigation purposes was now virtually ubiquitous at 97% in comparison to 71.4% in 2011 and 54% in 2010 as reported by Speake and Axon (2012). We thought it timely to find out more about how, and where, young people were using Sat Nav technology to wayfind.…”

Types of maps used as a stimuli in cartographical empirical research

“…This may be in response to user preferences. Users' turn from paper to digital maps is noticeable, especially when it comes to the navigational functions (Axon et al 2012;Speake & Axon 2013;Speake 2016). The disproportion may also be connected with the use of map applications prepared for the study and/or use of eye-tracking, which is often used as a supplementary method ).…”

Communicating Multilevel Evacuation Context Using Situated Augmented Reality

“…While familiarity with space can produce the spatial knowledge used to generate cognitive maps, research has shown that GPS and automatic navigation systems do not improve spatial awareness (Huang et al, 2012;Speake and Axon, 2012), and that these systems can create 'passive operators' with a degraded ability to acquire spatial knowledge (Parush et al, 2007). If AR is to be applied to emergency management with the purpose of improving spatial awareness, it must enhance the user's ability to comprehend the topology of complex multilevel spaces by providing allocentric representations of space instead of egocentric guidance through space.…”