Featured GPS use bad for your brain?

I think it depends on how you use GPS. If you're the type that just punches in addresses and follow it blindly without knowing exactly where your destination is, then yes I can see why it could make you a bit more forgetful (because you're not training your brain to remember turns and street names).


Like everything else in the vehicle associated with driving, it's meant as an assist. I usually check where the destination is in relation to me so I know what the general direction is. I also check what the streets are before the last turn so when I'm close, I can double check the instructions with reality (in case there are turn restrictions that the map doesn't know about).

But I do like it in foreign places. It helped with speed cameras when the stretch of road kept changing from 60km/h to 40km/h every few blocks and there were speed cameras 50-100m after the speed limit change. It also helps navigating some complex freeway interchanges with multiple ramps where one wrong turn will lead you 2-3km in the wrong direction before you can find a u-turn area (like a cloverleaf or an exit where you can pull over somewhere)