Mobile phones expose human habits
Byrnzie
Posts: 21,037
Wednesday, 4 June 2008 18:00 UK
Mobile phones expose human habits
By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7433128.stm
The whereabouts of more than 100,000 mobile phone users have been tracked in an attempt to build a comprehensive picture of human movements.
The study concludes that humans are creatures of habit, mostly visiting the same few spots time and time again.
Most people also move less than 10km on a regular basis, according to the study published in the journal Nature.
The results could be used to help prevent outbreaks of disease or forecast traffic, the scientists said.
"It would be wonderful if every [mobile] carrier could give universities access to their data because it's so rich," said Dr Marta Gonzalez of Northeastern University, Boston, US, and one of the authors of the paper.
Dr William Webb, head of research and development at the UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, agreed that mobile phone data was still underexploited.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg," he told BBC News.
Researchers have previously attempted to map human activity using GPS or surveys, but it is expensive.
One innovative approach tracked the movement of dollar bills in an attempt to reconstruct human movements.
The study used data from the website wheresgeorge.com, which allows anyone to track a dollar bill as it circulates through the economy. The site has so far tracked nearly 130 million notes.
Studies such as this suggested that humans wander in an apparently random fashion, similar to a so-called "Levy flight" pattern displayed by many foraging animals.
However, Dr Gonzalez and her team do not believe this approach gives a complete picture of people's movements.
"The bills pass from one person to another so they can't measure individual behaviour," she explained.
The new work tracked 100,000 individuals selected randomly from a sample of more than six million anonymous phone users.
Each time a participant made or received a call or text message, the location of the mobile base station relaying the data was recorded.
Information was collected for six months. But, according to the researchers, a person's pattern of movement could be seen in just three.
"The vast majority of people move around over a very short distance - around five to 10km," explained Professor Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, another member of the team.
"Then there were a few that moved a couple of hundred kilometres on a regular basis."
The results showed that most people's movements follow a precise mathematical relationship - known as a power law.
"That was the first surprise," he told BBC News.
The second surprise, he said, was that the patterns of people's movements, over short and long distances, were very similar: people tend to return to the same few places over and over again.
"Why is this good news?" he asked. "If I were to build a model of how everyone moves in society and they were not similar then it would require six billion different models - each person would require a different description."
Now, modellers had a basic rule book to follow, he said.
"This intrinsic similarity between individuals is very exciting and it has practical applications," said Professor Barabasi.
For example, Professor John Cleland of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Disease (LSHTM) said the study could be of use to people monitoring the spread of contagious diseases.
"Avian flu is the obvious one," he told BBC News. "When an outbreak of mammalian infectious airborne disease hits us, the movement of people is of critical concern."
Dr Gonzalez said that traffic planners had also expressed an interest in the study.
Although the scale of the latest study is unprecedented, it is not the first time that mobile phone technology has been used to track people's movements.
Scientists at MIT have used mobile phones to help construct a real-time model of traffic in Rome, whilst Microsoft researchers working on Project Lachesis are examining the possibility of mining mobile data to help commuters pick the optimum route to work, for example.
Location data is increasingly used by forensic scientists to identify the movements of criminal suspects.
For example, the technique was used by Italian police to capture Hussain Osman, one of four men jailed for the failed suicide bombings in London on 21 July.
Commercial products also exist, allowing parents to track children or for friends to receive alerts when they are in a similar location.
These types of services and projects will continue to grow, Dr Webb believes, as researchers and businesses find new ways to use the mobile phone networks.
"There are so many sensors that you could conceivably attach to a phone that you could do all kinds of monitoring activities with," he said.
For example, Nokia have put forward an idea to attach sensors to phones that could report back on air quality. The project would allow a large location-specific database to be built very quickly.
Ofcom is also planning to use mobiles to collect data about the quality of wi-fi connections around the UK.
"I am sure there will be tens if not hundreds of these ideas emerging over the next few years," said Dr Webb.
Mobile phones expose human habits
By Jonathan Fildes
Science and technology reporter, BBC News
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7433128.stm
The whereabouts of more than 100,000 mobile phone users have been tracked in an attempt to build a comprehensive picture of human movements.
The study concludes that humans are creatures of habit, mostly visiting the same few spots time and time again.
Most people also move less than 10km on a regular basis, according to the study published in the journal Nature.
The results could be used to help prevent outbreaks of disease or forecast traffic, the scientists said.
"It would be wonderful if every [mobile] carrier could give universities access to their data because it's so rich," said Dr Marta Gonzalez of Northeastern University, Boston, US, and one of the authors of the paper.
Dr William Webb, head of research and development at the UK telecoms regulator, Ofcom, agreed that mobile phone data was still underexploited.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg," he told BBC News.
Researchers have previously attempted to map human activity using GPS or surveys, but it is expensive.
One innovative approach tracked the movement of dollar bills in an attempt to reconstruct human movements.
The study used data from the website wheresgeorge.com, which allows anyone to track a dollar bill as it circulates through the economy. The site has so far tracked nearly 130 million notes.
Studies such as this suggested that humans wander in an apparently random fashion, similar to a so-called "Levy flight" pattern displayed by many foraging animals.
However, Dr Gonzalez and her team do not believe this approach gives a complete picture of people's movements.
"The bills pass from one person to another so they can't measure individual behaviour," she explained.
The new work tracked 100,000 individuals selected randomly from a sample of more than six million anonymous phone users.
Each time a participant made or received a call or text message, the location of the mobile base station relaying the data was recorded.
Information was collected for six months. But, according to the researchers, a person's pattern of movement could be seen in just three.
"The vast majority of people move around over a very short distance - around five to 10km," explained Professor Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, another member of the team.
"Then there were a few that moved a couple of hundred kilometres on a regular basis."
The results showed that most people's movements follow a precise mathematical relationship - known as a power law.
"That was the first surprise," he told BBC News.
The second surprise, he said, was that the patterns of people's movements, over short and long distances, were very similar: people tend to return to the same few places over and over again.
"Why is this good news?" he asked. "If I were to build a model of how everyone moves in society and they were not similar then it would require six billion different models - each person would require a different description."
Now, modellers had a basic rule book to follow, he said.
"This intrinsic similarity between individuals is very exciting and it has practical applications," said Professor Barabasi.
For example, Professor John Cleland of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Disease (LSHTM) said the study could be of use to people monitoring the spread of contagious diseases.
"Avian flu is the obvious one," he told BBC News. "When an outbreak of mammalian infectious airborne disease hits us, the movement of people is of critical concern."
Dr Gonzalez said that traffic planners had also expressed an interest in the study.
Although the scale of the latest study is unprecedented, it is not the first time that mobile phone technology has been used to track people's movements.
Scientists at MIT have used mobile phones to help construct a real-time model of traffic in Rome, whilst Microsoft researchers working on Project Lachesis are examining the possibility of mining mobile data to help commuters pick the optimum route to work, for example.
Location data is increasingly used by forensic scientists to identify the movements of criminal suspects.
For example, the technique was used by Italian police to capture Hussain Osman, one of four men jailed for the failed suicide bombings in London on 21 July.
Commercial products also exist, allowing parents to track children or for friends to receive alerts when they are in a similar location.
These types of services and projects will continue to grow, Dr Webb believes, as researchers and businesses find new ways to use the mobile phone networks.
"There are so many sensors that you could conceivably attach to a phone that you could do all kinds of monitoring activities with," he said.
For example, Nokia have put forward an idea to attach sensors to phones that could report back on air quality. The project would allow a large location-specific database to be built very quickly.
Ofcom is also planning to use mobiles to collect data about the quality of wi-fi connections around the UK.
"I am sure there will be tens if not hundreds of these ideas emerging over the next few years," said Dr Webb.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
Maybe Ahnimus was onto something?
Hey Ahnimus!! Come back!! I need your assistance!! :cool:
It's pretty obvious that most people will stay in the same general areas over a six month period.
Monday through Friday (You can find me at home, work or the gym)
Sat and Sunday A little more random, but still in the same general area.
Obviously, if I have favorite places to shop, or bars etc I will be in those locations more often than not!
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That's sort of what I was thinking, six months and a study group of 100,000 people to figure out something that should have been pretty obvious to begin with.
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it IS interesting! i love stuff like this...altho not fond of the 'bvig brother' onnotations of people's movements being tracked by their cell phones. i skimmed the article, so hope it says somewhere people volunteered.
and too true! i take 1 of 2 trains each AM to work, and i am amazed at the fluctuations of people. it's all so damn fascinating...habits and behaviors.......
Let's just breathe...
I am myself like you somehow
I also think it's weird how I was just trying to decide whether to watch the movie Rashomon, which I have cued up on my media player, or a Norman Finkelstein speech I have cued up on Youtube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fbn8OJ7ju-s - and as I decided to watch the Finkelstein speech first about halfway through he mentions the film Rashomon.
I mean, I've not heard anybody mention Rashomon since about 10 years ago when reading a book in which William Burroughs mentions it.
On the other side, I've been completely flipped out when I've ended up behind the exact same person (as determined by the make/model of the car and the bumper sticker) back when I used to commute 35 miles one way to work. A commute that fluctuated between 40 mintues to 2 hours, depending on the traffic and weather.
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Verona??? it's all surmountable
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At least I'm unpredictable when it comes to weekends
Verona??? it's all surmountable
Dublin 23.08.06 "The beauty of Ireland, right there!"
Wembley? We all believe!
Copenhagen?? your light made us stars
Chicago 07? And love
What a different life
Had I not found this love with you
Verona??? it's all surmountable
Dublin 23.08.06 "The beauty of Ireland, right there!"
Wembley? We all believe!
Copenhagen?? your light made us stars
Chicago 07? And love
What a different life
Had I not found this love with you
Anyway, I always think of humans as ants when I'm sitting in the station waiting, especially if I have to wait long. All these people perfectly organized by society, the trains make sure they all move at the same times, so do traffic lights (I see it when I'm riding my bicycle, for a while the road will be empty and then a whole bunch of cars suddenly appears, I figure it's because of traffic lights). Every human does his task, and society keeps running and growing... Couldn't it be that society just creates these habits for us? I know when I don't go to school, I don't eat between 12.30 and 13.30, I just eat when I'm hungry (always!) but when I go to school I have to eat then. If I have to go to the city, I go when I'm ready because I don't need to be somewhere on time.
Anyway, I love taking different roads home, I love getting lost in the city where I go to school, if you get lost often enough you really start to know the city
naděje umírá poslední
Hahaha... I see the ant thing too... (Papillon springs to mind... that was one of my favourite parts of that book) and I'm always amused by people cos they seem to be on such a mission to get where they're going... and why? But then I think.. hey, I'm part of this colony of ants too and while I'm laughing at the rest of them, I'm just as stupid.
Absolutely... I always advise people that's what they should do when they visit NYC but I don't do it in Dublin
Verona??? it's all surmountable
Dublin 23.08.06 "The beauty of Ireland, right there!"
Wembley? We all believe!
Copenhagen?? your light made us stars
Chicago 07? And love
What a different life
Had I not found this love with you
We usually go to the same bar. It's a sort of youth bar (yes, Americans they serve alcohol, for the youth! :eek:
I still have the luxury of not being one of those ants. I usually have a lot of time and I just wander among these people who are so focused on getting to their jobs or whatever... Everyone passes me
You should!
naděje umírá poslední
I'm glad you're not an ant
Verona??? it's all surmountable
Dublin 23.08.06 "The beauty of Ireland, right there!"
Wembley? We all believe!
Copenhagen?? your light made us stars
Chicago 07? And love
What a different life
Had I not found this love with you