I can’t say with certainty which quiz show it was I was watching but this genuinely happened about a month or so ago. Host: Which port did the ill fated passenger ship, The Titanic, set sale from on it’s maiden voyage prior to sinking? Contestant ( studenty looking lass) : Leeds. I **** you not, ****ing Leeds. It knocked me off kilter for the rest of the day.
That's funny but I'm not surprised. My daughter is 23 now, her and her mates have all grown up using google maps, satnav etc to find their way around, wherever they want to go. Across the country, to the next street, wherever. You see them walking the streets glued to their phones for directions, missing obvious landmarks, etc which are the things which can give them a sense of place. In the old days you'd say go left at the Red Lion, right at the lights, and so on. Not saying the old days are better but although the tools work you don't actually know where you are on a bigger scale, I've sensed that myself using satnav in the car in a strange place. How often do people these days look at a map to see where places are? Example. In Florida couple of weeks ago with daughter, using satnav to get from Orlando airport to Palm Beach. I knew within 20 mins that the satnav was doing it wrong because I kind of knew what Florida looked like and where Orlando was in relation to Palm Beach, Daughter was unaware. Turned out the satnav was set to not use interstate or toll roads, fixed that and all was well. That's it, rant over. Good story though CG, I laughed.
Yeah, I use to be like Marco Polo with a map, but nowadays someone will ask what road I took to a destination, I wouldn’t have a scooby doo. I’ve become totally dependent on sat navs
I'd say for me, online maps give me a convenient tool to go and look up where something is if it interests me. I do it quite a bit. Thing is I'm interested in where stuff is, and a lot of people aren't. Rather than technology being to blame, I think a lot of people just don't care about that kind of geography and find it boring, so don't know anything about it as a result.
It's not about blaming the tech, I use it all the time, it's just that I like to know where I'm going and where I've been, on a bigger scale. Another story, my grandma was Hessle Road born and bred, no education, never really went anywhere, like many of her generation. When my grandad retired from being a fish merchant he took them both off on a cruise to the W. Indies. She sent me a postcard addressed Plum, 15 Sandfield Road, Oxford, England, Yorkshire.
