Before and After Networks 7: Getting Around

Planning a trip used to start days before you left, with paper.

Before networks, travelers used paper maps, contacted travel agents, and consulted printed bus, train, and airline timetables. Getting lost often meant stopping to ask a stranger for directions.

Now GPS apps provide turn-by-turn directions, live traffic reports, real-time transit updates, and instant travel reservations. The route recalculates before you have finished missing the exit.

A paper map is a snapshot; a navigation app is a live feed. Navigation became a real-time data service, and the map now updates faster than the road does. The quiet cost is that we outsourced our sense of direction to the network — when it is down, we are more lost than our grandparents ever were.