Is GPS reliance making troops less observant? Yearlong study aims to find out.

[rangerrebew]

 
Is GPS reliance making troops less observant? Yearlong study aims to find out.
By Hope Hodge Seck
 Jun 29, 2026, 11:00 AM
 e)
Military commanders love to warn troops that overreliance on GPS technology could spell disaster when signals are jammed or networks go down. But could handing navigation over to a computer be diminishing their powers of observation and decision-making skills as well?

That’s the question an upcoming study from the University of Texas at Arlington aims to find out. The yearlong, $200,000 study, funded through the Department of Defense via a sub-grant, will use virtual reality simulations to track aspects of observation and recall in subjects with and without navigation aids.


Steven Weisberg and Hunter Ball, associate professors of psychology at the university and the leaders of the study, said findings could help inform the design of computer interfaces and even guide personnel assignments in a unit, based on how much technological support troops need and how their brains respond to it.

“If you’re fostering a scenario in which people are overrelying on things, they might not be able to use their own cognition when the time comes for them to do so, and so we want to identify ... the specific design features that help out with that,” Ball said. “We also want to identify — more long-term — individual differences. If I’m someone who has really low cognitive ability, I might always be relying on that external [guidance] source, and that’s going to be really good for me, but I’m going to suffer really bad whenever that goes down.”

https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2026/06/29/is-gps-reliance-making-troops-less-observant-yearlong-study-aims-to-find-out/

[rangerrebew]

Judging by how terrible drivers have become since it was introduced, I would say there is at least some correlation.  63 years ago, when I first got a license, if you went somewhere, you consulted a map, you had to plan the route, know the roads you would take, and other pertinent information.  Then you had to be alert on the route instead of waiting for a voice waiting to tell you what to do at the last second.

[DefiantMassRINO]

If I was an enemey of the United States, blowing up the GPS satellites would be one of the first things I'd do.

Much of the military's navigation, targetting, and guidance systems are dependent on GPS.

Space is a battle frontier, like cyber.

[roamer_1]

I know the outcome of this study already. Navigation in the mountains under a forest canopy is a practice in constant and unrelenting situational awareness. Having something else do that for you is not going to work out very well. You can write that down, because it is true.

[MeganC]

GPS is going to get someone killed the next time they show up at our place pounding on the door and demanding a room. This is not even remotely Yellowstone Lodge! 

[Smokin Joe]

Google maps has put so many truckers in snow covered fields here it has become cliche.

No maps are immune. The satellite view shows where the road used to be...if it was ever there.
Even GIS base maps have the errors.

Considering my new job has me working off GIS base maps to find production locations, it's nice when the roads are accurate. Thankfully, it's summer and I have time to learn the area before the snow flies.

[The_Reader_David]

If I was an enemey of the United States, blowing up the GPS satellites would be one of the first things I'd do.

Much of the military's navigation, targetting, and guidance systems are dependent on GPS.

Space is a battle frontier, like cyber.

Yup.  Or the more radical solution:  prepare to fight using an operational doctrine that relies on nothing transmitted via long-wave electromagnetic spectrum and jam everything longer wave-length than infrared. 

[Smokin Joe]

Yup.  Or the more radical solution:  prepare to fight using an operational doctrine that relies on nothing transmitted via long-wave electromagnetic spectrum and jam everything longer wave-length than infrared.

Someone needs to make a mini INS that can survive combat conditions.