Given a choice, most people will prefer one thing over another. In most cases there's no right or wrong, just different tastes and ways of doing things. Neither selection is inherently better, and depending on circumstance, one might even slide across the divide and go the other way: these are not choices carved in stone. Sparkling water or still. Clean desk or messy. Bookmark or folded page. By and large, the choice you make conveys no baggage, and is merely taken as a minor idiosyncratic tic that neither adds nor detracts from the overall impression you convey to the world.
That said, it is also true that certain binary choices elicit more passion than others. We're not talking the obvious ones, such as Conservative vs Liberal. Still, proponents of positions in these other areas can be far less flexible. They are less forgiving of opposing viewpoints, strident in their preaching of the correctness of their choice, and highly unlikely to venture across the bright red line demarking the middle. Toilet paper hung over or under. Hotdogs with ketchup or mustard. Apple vs. Android. Surveys have borne this out: 93% of people surveyed say they could never be happy with someone who has pineapple on their pizza.
In a nutshell, that is the root of many of the ills we have today: our unwillingness to see another point of view. And so at the urging of my wife's cousin, I have been tried to at least peer across a similar divide, and see how those people think. Linda had no dog in the fight, as her company makes the products on both sides of the split. She merely nodded as I pontificated, smiled lightly as I demeaned the other side, then calmly explained the differences to encourage me to keep an open mind, which, truth be told, was already made up. Still, I was willing to at least make an effort to not be so ideological rigid when it comes down to Google Maps vs Waze.
If you don't drive, then stop now, and go get something from the fridge. But if you do, chances are you have become an aficionado of one of these two. Even if you are simply driving home from the city, a route you've taken a thousand times, there's a reasonable chance you engage your fav to pinpoint where the backups exist, where the speed traps are waiting, and to give you a guesstimate as to when you'll finally get home for dinner.
If you're a Maps person, you're a Dragnet driver: just the facts, ma'am. Maps is the Michelin Guide as an electronic road map. It's all detail and no personality, showing you the unadorned way to get from point A to point B. For example, to go from New York to Washington DC it plots a drive down Route 95 as a straight line, and offers an option to swing out to Gettysburg and loop in via Frederick. It shows that route as a little longer, but makes no judgement as to why you should or shouldn't take it. Maps makes use of the travel data coming in from other drivers, so you see where the traffic is and is not. But it only suggests. You decide.
Waze, on the other hand, is the crowd sourced, videogame-inspired, Facebook version of a trip. Your car is a little cartoon, and stuff pops up as you travel, including ads. Waze encourages you to live out loud, reporting what you see and sharing that with other drivers. The more people report in, the more info you get. As you drive, little icons, symbols and sound effects make it feel like you are living inside the machine trying to get to Narnia or the Matrix or wherever.
Both generally get you where you want to go: it comes down to style more than substance. If you like to post what you had for breakfast, pin your favorite fashions, and carry a Switch in your bag for downtimes, Waze is right up your alley. If you want to know when to turn left and nothing more, then Maps is more your speed. As for me, let me say for years one of my proudest possessions was my box of service station road maps. Can you guess on which side of the divide I come down?
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Marc Wollin of Bedford uses his GPS on almost every drive over 20 miles. His column appears regularly in The Record-Review, The Scarsdale Inquirer and online at http://www.glancingaskance.blogspot.com/, as well as via Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.
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