Three-quarters of UK adults can’t read a map – here’s how to get better
https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2022 ... rvey-study
I'm 25, and the amount of people my age who don't know, and refuse to learn, how to read a map is just ridiculous. They don't even know where cities/towns are in relation to each other. People are dumbfounded when they learn I rarely use GPS navigation. "How did you do it without a GPS?" because I read a fucking map and planned my route. I'm not a super-genius, I'm just not a lazy fuck.
Don't even get me started on people who can't read analog clocks.
Sometimes I wake up an night in a cold sweat and reach for my phone hoping that for just a few months, there’s a technology blackout, then people would understand why analog skills are important, and how most of them are perishable, which is why those of us who possess analog skills spend time practicing and honing them. They’ll call us crazy people until one day, they’re begging for help. And then I’ll help them, but I’ll be so fucking smug about it the whole time they’ll regret asking lol
With GPS in your pocket 24 7 you really dont need to know
You sound so incredibly judgmental. Not everyone has an opportunity to learn how to read a map. There’s a thing called GPS that makes reading a map not so necessary anymore. Additionally, if someone doesn’t know how to read a map, it might not be because they’re lazy. It could be because they have other things going on in there life and learning to read a map, isn’t at the top of their list.
Someone people might not have been able to go to school to tell time without it being digital. Maybe their parents didn’t know how to tell time either or who knows what other reasons there maybe.
Get off your pointless soapbox and extend some compassion to others. Or better yet, get out your hand dandy map and shove it up your ass.
Happy Holidays!
I actually had a friend make the news a few years ago because him and his buddies got lost due to the fact they had almost no service for GPS. They had just enough cell service to dial 911 and get search & rescue to get them.
I use grid maps every time I go backpacking. I plot where I want to go, Get my 10-digit coordinates and get there.
Maps are becoming a lost art in society.
My kids about your age and couldn't figure out how to use an old fashioned rotary phone. Also they didn't know what an ice tray was because refrigerators have come with automatic ice makers , their whole lives. They also can't read cursive. There are some just skills that school districts have decided are obsolete.
.....Please can someone explain to me how people can go on to a TV show to win a £250k investment in their business but THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO READ A FUCKING MAP???
Candidates are LITERALLY admitting this on camera ('its before my time...') like its acceptable...WHAT???
Since when was reading a map a skill? ITS JUST FOLLOWING LINES FFS
Or am I missing something? Im 41 and I cannot understand how anybody who can read words cannot read a map.... I'm genuinely flabbergasted and ANNOYED BC ITS NOT A FLEX
Sorry. I've had a wine.
They go on the show to show that they have business acumen and build / run a profitable business, not read a map lol. I don’t think LS really cares about that
It's 2025, people haven't needed to read a map for at least 15 years. Anyone under the age of 30 would have had technology pretty much all their adult life that has negated the need for physical maps
all honesty, I think sometimes it can be quite overwhelming at first glance.
Years ago, you stuck it out because if you didn't stick it out, you didn't go to wherever you were trying to go.
Nowadays, between the fact everything is kind of just done for you now and the weird minimalist corporate aesthetic, I think people just don't want to do it. It's not that they can't do it, it's not like it's difficult to learn, it's that they just don't want to. These are (theoretically) not stupid people. They're perfectly capable (again, theoretically).
There are definitely conditions/learning difficulties that make it harder to read a map. But the vast majority of people can't do it purely because they just don't have to now.
I personally learnt to read maps within the space of ten minutes after I got stranded in London after a medical appointment (phone died) and needed to get back to Euston station to go home. It was 6pm on New Year's Eve, and I couldn't find a charging point. It's a necessary life skill honestly, even now.
Wait til OP finds out they can’t send a fax or save a Word document to a floppy disk!