Читать книгу Sort Your Brain Out - Джек Льюис, Адриан Вебстер - Страница 25

Your satnav doesn't have common sense – you do. Map reading and navigation are useful skills to have, particularly in the event of a technical hiccup. If you want to hold onto them, maintaining your self‐navigational skills is simple. Don't rely on satnav all the time, especially when you want to get to places you've been to many times before.

Think of all those drivers of London's black cabs whose inflated hippocampi shrink back down after they retire. You need to keep on reusing those navigation pathways of your brain to keep them fresh. Before switching on the satnav, take a look at your route on a map to give yourself an idea of where you're going.

The cognitive gymnastics required to convert a 2D map into a mental picture of the route you'll be taking in the 3D world gives parietal brain areas involved in “mental rotation” a great workout. And hopefully, the next time you find yourself driving the wrong way down a one‐way street, in the middle of a building site or along a road that doesn't exist, common sense will prevail.

The bottom line is that whether or not a brain does get made redundant is of course up to its owner. Neither technology nor the brain itself can be blamed if, through lack of appropriate stimulation, certain parts get left behind. Provided you give your basic cognitive abilities regular chances to be stretched, your brain is more than capable of keeping up.