Navigation apps have become part of everyday life for most people. A new Bitkom survey, however, points to a growing dependence on digital guidance: only 30% of Germans say they can still navigate well with a printed map, while half admit they would struggle in daily life without a navigation app. From a resilience perspective, this is more than a question of convenience.
Open the smartphone, enter a destination and follow the route. Digital navigation has fundamentally changed the way people move through cities, travel and plan journeys. In Germany, 84% of people now use navigation apps on smartphones, computers or in vehicles. Among 16- to 29-year-olds, the figure rises to 95%.A representative Bitkom survey of 1,006 people aged 16 and over also shows how quickly traditional orientation skills are fading. Only 30% of respondents rate their ability to navigate with a printed map as good. Eleven per cent consider themselves very capable, while a further 19% describe their skills as fairly good. By contrast, 19% rate their abilities as rather poor and 17% as very poor. Another 26% say they cannot assess their own ability at all, possibly because they have little or no experience of navigating with paper maps.
Younger People Depend More Heavily on Digital Navigation
The generational divide is particularly striking. Only 20% of people aged between 16 and 29 believe they can navigate well using a printed map. Among those aged 65 and over, the proportion is 41%. The inverse pattern can be seen in the importance attached to digital navigation. Sixty per cent of 16- to 29-year-olds say they would be lost in everyday life without a navigation app. Among people aged 65 and above, the figure is 36%. Across all age groups, half of respondents say they would struggle in daily life without digital navigation. When travelling on holiday, the dependency becomes even stronger: 58% say they would have significant difficulties without navigation apps. Among younger respondents, that figure rises to 67%, compared with 43% among older people. Digital navigation is therefore moving beyond the role of a convenient additional tool. For many users, it has effectively become part of the infrastructure on which everyday mobility depends.
Two-Thirds Say Their Sense of Direction Has Deteriorated
According to the survey, that convenience also has a downside. Two-thirds of respondents, 66%, say their sense of direction has worsened as a result of using navigation apps. Among 16- to 29-year-olds, the proportion rises to 71%. Among people aged 65 and above, it stands at 53%. Another figure is particularly noteworthy: 18% of Germans say they would follow the instructions of a navigation app even if the suggested route appeared illogical. There is relatively little difference between generations here. Eighteen per cent of younger respondents say they would do so, compared with 15% of those aged 65 and over. The issue therefore extends beyond whether people still know how to read a map. Digital systems are increasingly influencing how users assess situations themselves. The more people assume that an application knows the correct route, the less likely they may be to question the information being presented.
Paper Maps Are Disappearing from Everyday Use
Printed navigation materials now play only a minor role. Twenty-eight per cent of Germans say they still use printed city maps, road maps, hiking maps or atlases at all. Regular use is rare. Just 1% use them weekly, another 1% several times per month, while 26% consult them once a month or less frequently. Yet analogue navigation has not lost its perceived value entirely. Sixty-one per cent of respondents believe that people should still learn how to navigate with a paper map. Bitkom Managing Director Dr Bernhard Rohleder points to the obvious advantages of digital navigation. Smartphone and in-car applications are readily available, can incorporate current traffic information and calculate alternative routes within seconds. At the same time, he argues that basic analogue skills can still be valuable in exceptional or emergency situations. If the battery is flat or network connectivity is disrupted, digital navigation may no longer be available.
Convenience Becomes a Resilience Issue
This is where the Bitkom findings take on a wider security relevance. Navigation applications work so reliably in everyday life that users rarely consider the technical chain behind them. Smartphones, battery power, satellite navigation, mobile connectivity and digital mapping services all contribute to a system that many people now rely on without thinking about its individual dependencies. Under normal conditions, this is rarely a problem. The vulnerability becomes visible when one or more components fail. A flat smartphone battery is the most obvious example. More serious scenarios include communications outages, disruptions to satellite-based navigation or situations in which digital information is temporarily unavailable or unreliable. The survey therefore reflects a broader pattern in digitalisation: the more reliable and convenient a technology becomes, the more quickly the skills previously needed to perform the same task independently can disappear. That does not mean digital navigation should be questioned as such. Its advantages in complex journeys, unfamiliar environments and changing traffic conditions are difficult to reproduce with a printed map. The more important question is whether basic analogue orientation skills should disappear completely. The fact that 61% of respondents still consider map-reading a useful skill suggests that many people recognise this tension.
Navigation Illustrates a Wider Digital Security Problem
The development can also be viewed beyond the narrow question of maps and navigation apps. Across many areas of daily life, digital systems increasingly perform tasks that people previously carried out themselves. This improves convenience and efficiency, but it also changes the consequences of technical failure. Navigation is a particularly visible example. As long as the smartphone, GPS service and application function correctly, digital navigation is usually far more convenient than its analogue alternative. If the system fails, however, a skill that many users rarely practise can suddenly become important for maintaining individual mobility and situational awareness. The Bitkom figures therefore describe more than a change in mobility habits. They illustrate how quickly technological assistance can evolve into functional dependency. From a resilience perspective, the lesson is straightforward: digital systems should be as reliable as possible, but users should also retain at least a basic ability to remain operational when those systems are temporarily unavailable.
