G.P.S. and the Lost Art of Getting Lost

For The New Yorker, Shayla Love writes about how GPS—a military technology turned daily necessity, and the subject of Katherine Dunn’s new book, Little Blue Dot: How GPS Shaped the Modern World—has changed the way we move through the world. To test her own skills, Love navigates from North Brooklyn to a park in Queens with a paper map, then sets off on an orienteering course without the trusty little blue dot, where she discovers how rusty her sense of direction really is.

Surprisingly, I still felt an urge to pull out my phone and look at my dot, to confirm what my surroundings were showing me. I started to feel that the true value of orienteering was more akin to that of reading a long book, or baking from scratch, or attending a long classical-music concert. I wasn’t necessarily tapping into my inner homing pigeon. I was practicing more general skills that get rusty when I over-rely on technology: paying attention, being patient, accepting uncertainty. We made our way to No. 7, on a “prominent tree, east side.” We didn’t find No. 6—a small blow to the ego—but my confidence soared when we found five, four, and three. The desire to check my dot faded to a low simmer.