Assessing Bias in Smartphone Mobility Estimates in Low Income Countries

• Tác giả: Sveta Milusheva
• Ngôn ngữ: eng
• Ký hiệu phân loại: 006.67 Programming for specific types of computers, for specific operating systems, for specific user interfaces
• Thông tin xuất bản: Association for Computing Machinery, 2021
• Bộ sưu tập: Tài liệu truy cập mở
• ID: 292186
• Chủ đề: 1. CORONAVIRUS; 2. COVID-19; 3. MOBILITY ESTIMATION; 4. PANDEMIC IMPACT; 5. SMARTPHONE

Tóm tắt

It has become common for governments and practitioners to measure mobility using data from smartphones, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet in countries where few people have smartphones, or use mobile internet, the movement of smartphones may not be a good indicator of the movement of the population. This paper develops a framework for approaching potential bias that can arise when measuring mobility with smartphones. Using mobile phone operator records in Uganda, we compare the mobility of smartphones and the basic and feature phones that are more common. Smartphones have different travel patterns, and decrease mobility substantially more in response to a COVID-19 lockdown. This suggests caution when interpreting smartphone mobility estimates in contexts with low adoption.