Cell Phone Data Reveals Which Americans Are Staying at Home and Which Ones Aren’t
Now when technology has so many advances, there is a possibility that everything can be monitored, so that possibility can be used for various purposes. This feature was offered by American cell phone companies as a service to determine who is self-isolating and socially distancing themselves. One of the services that can do this is Unacast, a company that collects and analyzes telephone GPS location data. It revealed a “Social Distancing Scoreboard” chart showing which residents across the country are actually abiding by the behavior, ordered and encouraged by health officials.
Unacast can compare the location of users at the moment and those collected before a pandemic. The results are obtained by comparing changes in time spent around the home and group activities.
The map shows blue in color in countries where residents have great social distance, while those in need of improvement are colored orange.
Data collected from millions of cell phones in this way shows that Alaska, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, and Washington DC are currently the most disciplined in following the social distance protocol. On the other hand, residents of North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming are among those who need to improve their attitude toward the measures taken.
In addition to the colors applied to the map, each country receives a letter rating ranging from A to F:
- “A” means that the companionship has decreased by more than 40 percent,
- “B” is a decrease of 30-40 percent,
- “C” is a decrease of 20-30 percent,
- “D” is 10-20
- “F” indicates less than 10 percent.
In addition to the state view, counties can be seen on the map, which is an interesting way of gaining insight into how social distances can be drastically different. There can, also be seen, the differences from state to state but also from county to county. The map shows that California received a B total, but a look in each county reveals that this relatively high rating is largely due to coastal communities. Most California coastal counties were rated A, while inland counties were rated D or F.
If you live in the United States and want to check the state of your country (county), visit the Unacasta website and interactive map here:
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