[teraku]

There is research on this, and basically people have gone from a model of concentric circles to a model of connected island.

What does this mean?

Back in the day, you explored the area around yourself by foot or bike. Your model of your surroundings grew in concentric circles, which included more and more places of interest. Your friend's house, school, the library, and so on.

Nowadays, you drive everywhere, by train or car, and it is like warping to that location. The way is just a wait, which you spend on your phone, or sometimes driving (but really (auto-)piloted by your navigation system).

[toastal]

Worse yet is the GPS navigation pointing forward instead of north and telling you which way to turn in relative space (left or right). Many folk aren't building an intuition about the layouts of their towns and cities because everything is relative.

My Dad got my a US Atlas for Christmas around my 16th birthday and told me to always trace out the route is was going by hand and understand in absolutes where I was going. Eventually it all clicked now and I find it odd that people sometimes compliment me on my navigation of cities and ability to use maps—but I'm not sure how people do it otherwise without being glued to a phone. Getting slightly lost has always been the fun part.