LOSING OUR WAY
If it weren’t for modern technology, I might not be able to walk.
That’s because, over the years, skilled surgeons using state of the art equipment have cut me open nine times to insert a fake disc in my back, screw my broken leg together and make other repairs. So, I should be a big fan of all the devices modern science has produced. But I’m not. Or more to the point, I’m not a big fan of the way many of us depend on high-tech gadgets and use them as crutches so we don’t need to develop low-tech skills… like paying attention to what is going on around us. As you may have guessed from the picture at the top of the page, I believe the Global Positioning System that many of us have on our phones and in our cars is one of them.
GPS first entered my radar during a journey through the bush around Sua Pan in 1997, and after that experience, I doubted it would ever be able to compete with maps and local knowledge. My wife and I had just joined the Francistown branch of Birdlife Botswana and that was our first outing with the club, so we were happy to follow the old-timers to where we had arranged to camp with members from Gaborone.
Unfortunately, one of our birders raved so much about his new GPS that the others decided to let his gadget guide us through the confusing network of sandy trails. To cut a long story short, we soon got lost and had to spend several hours trying to find a landmark or a person who could tell us where we were on a map.
Okay, the navigation devices have become more reliable during the past 24 years, but our reliance on them has created a situation where modern drivers risk getting lost on routes they have travelled many times. That’s what happened to my daughter when the phone she was using for GPS directions packed it in during the hour-long drive to her friend’s house, and again she wasted a chunk of her holiday figuring out how to get there.
She grew up using road signs and landmarks to direct her parents to various destinations in southern Africa, both on and off road, but she said since she’s been navigating with GPS over here in England, those things don’t register the way they used to. For people who have never navigated without satellite assistance, I fear they may not register at all.
Which brings us back to that picture. I’d like to think those Bushmen are just having a laugh at someone else’s GPS, but considering the government has already made some of them dependent on trucked-in water, that may not be the case. And if it isn’t, the skills and knowledge we risk losing could hardly be called progress.
Sure, modern technology can do wonderful things and without it I might not be walking today… but it can also threaten the quality of our lives. So, if we truly wish to move forward, perhaps we should slow down, look around, pay attention and try to take in more than just a blue line as we travel through life.