Traditional maps are said to date back 8,000 years ago as cave drawings in Ancient Mesopotamia. Fast forward through the 16th and 17th centuries when cartographers realized that the world is not in fact flat, all the way up to the digitization of maps, it is undeniable the incredible transformation maps have made in the past 20 years, let alone the past 8,000.
Upon reading through the Anatomy of a Web Map presentation by McConchie and Schechter, I found myself nostalgic of the times when I was younger and watched my parents input addresses into MapQuest online. The more I thought about how useful MapQuest was to my family in the early 2000’s, the more I wondered how the heck did people get around to unknown locations before the invention of web maps? Of course there were paper maps, but how were people able to account for traffic, or choose the quickest routes to a location with just a paper map? I proceeded to text my mom the same question and she promptly responded…
“We used Thomas Guide, or went to AAA to get specific city maps. Every gas station worker/owner would give you directions, but I honestly don’t know how we managed so well without GPS.”
The same could be said about the invention iPhones. Every American seemed to be able to function quite well upon the era of the “flip phone,” but ever since Steve Jobs’ legendary technological invention, individuals have no idea how they would be able to carry out their lives without this device in their presence each and every day–myself included. We are a generation that is becoming more and more dependent on new technologies, and in effect, we are seemingly less functional if we are ever not in the presence of these devices. In Information Studies 20 last year, Professor Srinivasan forced us to take a “Digital Detox” day, where you were not allowed to use any technology for a full 24 hours. Based off a camp in Northern California where campers are stripped of all technologies in order to find their personal peace again, the assignment really taught myself and all my fellow classmates how much of a presence these devices are in our everyday lives. At the end of the day, we need to be able to detach ourselves and “unplug” from the digital environment in order to ensure the only presence we have is not an online one.