The MapQuest Generation

[swebeast]

Allow me to relate the following story to you.

I was working tonight at the store where I work, and some Middle Eastern guy came in to get directions to Roanoke. I was showing him the way on a map-which wasn’t the easiest thing in the world, since he only half-spoke English and I never got around to taking Arabic in college, but that’s only

Comments

[dr_zrfq]

Something like a Rand McNally map of Virginia? Honestly, I wouldn't pay $4.95 for something like that unless it were a particularly useful one. (This does not apply to street-level map books; at that level of detail they're worth the 10 clams at BJ's or Costco, as long as they're likely to be used

[swebeast]

Now that you mention it, I do concede that $4.95 is perhaps a little much for a standard Virginia road map. I myself have one that was graciously provided by the taxpayers of the Commonwealth of Virginia. (By the same token, your maps from AAA are not so much “free” as they are “prepaid” . . .) So, perhaps that specific example is not the best.

Nevertheless, I must also point out that the girls’ objection was not that the customer would have been financially savvier by obtaining a road map from the Commonwealth beforehand. Nor did they specify that they were shocked by the exorbitant price of a state highway map as opposed to a city map (etc.). They, referring to MapQuest, seemed to be completely stunned by the concept of paying for a map of any kind. (I do assume, however, that they were only referring to the ordinary fold-out maps and not to the venerable map books which you so sagely mention.) Given their reference to MapQuest, I don’t think it unreasonable to wonder if they had even had all that much experience using paper maps.

[dr_zrfq]

Map literacy was taught in geography class when I was in grade school. I would strongly encourage the same now, to the point of putting map-literacy questions on the 5th and 8th grade SoL tests (or the local equivalent in places outside Virginia).

[flamingophoenix]

(This is Emily from Das Haus, by the way. Hi!)

That's pretty surprising...but if they had GPS systems in addition to Mapquest/Googlemaps (I don't know how prevalent GPS's' were in 2007, it's been a while), then they *would* be okay for missing a turnoff. So...yeah!