*Disclaimer – this post assumes that people have a reasonable level of common sense. This may be a major flaw in my assessment.

In the time since we left Hawaii up until now, Sasha and I have been averaging a ride in a private vehicle about once a month. We make great use of the local public transportation systems and neither of us have driven a vehicle since we left last July (aside from some awesome Indoor Karting in Ireland).

This means getting around requires that we walk (a lot), which is really great for us in many ways. This post is not about those thing. This post is about certain behaviors that other pedestrians exhibit which I have started to abhor. I will be presenting (actually more like ranting) about these in the first few of a series of posts about my pet peeves.

Today’s diatribe is about smartphones. Oh, wonder of the current decade, thank you for enabling me to carry around a phone, PDA, camera, map, notebook, address book, and all the other things I usually just left at home. More features are being added every year, but I believe smartphones are heavily used for only two tasks (based on my own experience) – texting and anything related to a map. I’m going to use Google Maps as my basis because, let’s face reality, they do maps the best. And though texting has created all kinds of issues, I’m going to focus on maps. (For general ridiculous articles, check these out: (China creates sidewalk specifically for mobile phone users, Washington DC does something similar, Germany puts traffic lights in the sidewalk, people are more oblivious while using cell phones and are getting into more accidents – here, here, here and here)

There is quite a bit of information floating around cyberspace regarding “The Google Effect,” or how Google is rotting your brain so you don’t/can’t use it. I’d like to look more specifically at Google Maps itself and how it is affecting our ability to function (future post, which we’ll call “The Google Maps Effect” for continuity sake). My smartphone tirade is one small part of that discussion.

Picture this as I describe the perfect example of my grievance. Sasha and I are walking in Dublin around the outside of Trinity College, headed towards St. Stephen’s Green. The city is currently extending one of the light rail lines, and a portion of the new route is in the street adjacent to where we are walking. Due to the construction, there is a fence on the road side to keep us away from the construction zone and another fence on the Trinity College side to keep us away from where the construction crews store some of their equipment. We are basically walking down a tunnel on the street. This is a really busy pedestrian area all the time and today is no different. Everyone generally walks single file in each direction because there isn’t much room to walk side-by-side. Suddenly the man-child in the gray jacket in front of us looks up and around in a kind of startled, deer-in-the-headlights kind of way, reaches into his pocket, and STOPS to look at his phone. You can guess what happens next, but you’ll probably be wrong. Luckily at that moment there was no one walking in the opposite direction and we were able to make use of our cat-like skillz (thanks Tang Soo Do and Taekwondo) to expertly maneuver around this man-obstacle. I am not sure if the people behind us were as deft or lucky.

While in Zürich, we were surprised by how many people did not walk around with their phones. This was refreshing and led to few, if any, instances like the one described above. Dubliners tend to use their phones more often (or we are in too-touristy areas), and this situation occurs frequently.

I can understand the need to sometimes stop along the sidewalk to do something – you realized you didn’t turn off the oven, you see something shiny in a display window, or you are a wayward toddler on a mission for freedom. (On a side note, child leashes are, in my opinion, awful inventions. I don’t care how cute the teddy bear backpack harness is. Watch your child or let them watch themselves.) In many cases when you realize you need to stop, you look around and assess your surroundings. Step aside or continue forward to the next doorway to be less of a disturbance to others. When you look at your phone, especially a map – something seems to change.

Not only do you not know where you are in the city until you look at the map on your phone, but when you do you are just hoping to still be somewhere along that blue line and closer to your destination pin than the last time you looked (15 seconds ago). The moment you start thinking about checking your location is when you also suddenly seem to forget where you are in space. As you become the only human left on the planet, there’s no need to consider if there are any other people around. How could there be? Your personal bubble is now the size of the Earth and nothing is coming near you.

Except, of course, everyone else also using the sidewalk.

Thank you, Google Maps, for helping us to forget how to read maps, how to navigate, how to remember where we are, and how to use common sense in public spaces. And thank you also for helping me to continue practicing martial arts in my everyday environment and for the unexpected and unwanted encounters with strangers.

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