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Monday, June 9, 2008

Cell Phone Usage informs People Never Stray Far From Home

Cell Phone Usage informs People Never Stray Far From Home

People seem to have lost their wanderlust. Now, the cell-phone tracking study suggests that people rarely stray far away from families areas. You must be wondering how researchers recorded the new finding! It’s not through some software or technical product. They tracked the calls of 10,000 people from around six million mobile phone users in an undisclosed country, over a period of six month.

Marta Gonzalez of Northeastern University in Boston, Massachusetts is the study’s lead author. She said that the main purpose of this research is to help urban planners who are addressing problems as varied as traffic forecasting and emergency preparedness.

Researchers recorded each time the outgoing and incoming calls and even text messages of the volunteers. They were able to get the location of the users through the tower servicing. They also tracked calls to two locations that were most frequently being used. It was noticed that the calls were made to and from home and work, which is at the distance of under a five-kilometer radius or area around the tower. Marta stated the people were found close to their home.

For easy reference, 70 percent of mobile phone users were seem in two locations most of the time (20-mils radius), whereas less than 3 percent of people ventured beyond 200 miles radius, and 1 percent of volunteer traveled 621-miles radius from home.

Gonzalez mentioned that they are assuming the two preferred location are their homes and office places. They aren’t sure whether the two locations are specifically their work place and home.

We believe that this restriction of unidentified volunteers is basically due to the privacy issues involved. However, they have successfully tracked human mobility with the help of the mobile phone. People preferred staying near by to their living area. Is it may be they are homesick or the traveling issue is the cause of concern?

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