By Zhixin Fang
As the weather warms up and more people are becoming eager to go outside, a research article picked up by the Washington Post found data proof that Americans are staying home less by using location data from 100 million cell phones.
Researchers found that April 13 was a tipping point and American people have been taking more daily trips since then. Furthermore, the Washington Post aligned this data observation with events such as the protest to defy stay-at-home order in Michigan, President Trump’s tweets, and people’s emotion over time as most of the country enters its fifth week of lockdown.
The implication of using mobile location data to track people’s behavior is vast. Along the same line, recent developments in contact tracing mobile applications utilize similar methods to trace close contacts of COVID-19 patients. This method is thought to provide privacy protection while understanding people’s behavior and the spread of the virus. More on that to come.