Not­ing that “a device can be pre­cise with­out being accu­rate” and con­tem­plat­ing the pos­si­ble effects the simul­ta­ne­ous rise in dig­i­tal maps and a decline in the use of paper maps could have, John McK­in­ney looks at some stud­ies com­par­ing the effi­cacy of dif­fer­ent nav­i­ga­tional aids:

Stud­ies by the British Car­to­graphic Soci­ety show that high-tech maps get the user from Point A to Point B but leave off tra­di­tional fea­tures such as his­tor­i­cal land­marks, gov­ern­ment build­ings and cul­tural insti­tu­tions; this could lead to a loss of cul­tural and geo­graphic lit­er­acy, the august body warns. […]

A study com­par­ing paper map users ver­sus GPS users […] found that peo­ple on foot using a GPS device make more errors and take longer to reach their des­ti­na­tions than peo­ple using an old-fashioned map. (Although an ear­lier study […] sug­gested GPS bet­tered paper maps in improv­ing dri­ving efficiency.) […]

[Another] study found GPS users made more stops, walked far­ther and more slowly than map users and demon­strated a poorer knowl­edge of the ter­rain, topog­ra­phy and routes taken when asked to sketch a map after their walks. GPS users also adjudged the way-finding tasks as much more dif­fi­cult than did map users. Those prov­ing to be most pro­fi­cient at nav­i­ga­tion turned out to be those shown the route by researchers — they bested both map and GPS users by strid­ing to des­ti­na­tions faster and with fewer missteps.

via The Browser