{"id":13697,"date":"2020-06-23T10:00:48","date_gmt":"2020-06-23T14:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/?p=13697"},"modified":"2020-06-24T14:35:11","modified_gmt":"2020-06-24T18:35:11","slug":"using-social-media-to-track-social-distancing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/2020\/06\/using-social-media-to-track-social-distancing\/","title":{"rendered":"Using Social Media to Track Social Distancing"},"content":{"rendered":"<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-13978\" src=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/bigstock-Coronavirus-Covid-nco-356852063-1024x616.jpeg\" alt=\"Coronavirus news and information\" width=\"1024\" height=\"616\" srcset=\"https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/bigstock-Coronavirus-Covid-nco-356852063-1024x616.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/bigstock-Coronavirus-Covid-nco-356852063-300x180.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/bigstock-Coronavirus-Covid-nco-356852063-768x462.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/bigstock-Coronavirus-Covid-nco-356852063-1536x924.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/engineering.jhu.edu\/magazine-archive\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/bigstock-Coronavirus-Covid-nco-356852063-2048x1232.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/>\n<p>By comparing Twitter data from before and after the COVID-19 outbreak, a team led by WSE computer scientist <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cs.jhu.edu\/faculty\/mark-dredze\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mark Dredze<\/a> found a profound impact on the movement of Americans\u2014indicating social distancing recommendations were\u00a0 having an effect.<\/p>\n<p>Dredze, the John C. Malone Associate Professor of Computer Science, created the <a href=\"http:\/\/socialmobility.covid19dataresources.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Twitter Social Mobility Index<\/a>, which measures public geotagged data from Twitter\u2014tweets with users\u2019 current location attached\u2014from March 16 to March 29 and compared it to similar data from Jan. 1, 2019, to March 16, 2020. The team found that the movement of Americans during the COVID-19 outbreak dropped by 52 percent. In some states, people\u2019s movement did not change much, but in those with firm social distancing measures in place, the reductions were more dramatic.<\/p>\n<p>Since the onset of the pandemic, municipalities, states, and the federal government have initiated directives to limit travel, stay home, and increase the physical distance between people to slow the spread of the virus.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe question, though, is how effective are these policies? Once you tell people to stay home, it doesn\u2019t mean everyone listens,\u201d Dredze says. \u201cIt\u2019s important for us to understand on an ongoing basis if people are actually listening to these directives.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The team plans to continue the study and update the results. \u201cWe want to continue to track this to see if people\u2019s movement will continue to drop or if people will get fed up with staying home and start moving around again,\u201d Dredze says. \u201cUnderstanding these behaviors will be important for decision-makers and public health researchers.\u201d<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>Our researchers, medical teams, staff, and students are working tirelessly to help with testing, patient care, and preventive care\u2014with your support we can do more! Visit\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/secure.jhu.edu\/form\/eng\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">engineering.jhu.edu\/giving<\/a>\u00a0to make a gift in support of our efforts.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By comparing Twitter data from before and after the COVID-19 outbreak, a team led by WSE computer scientist Mark Dredze found a profound impact on the movement of Americans\u2014indicating social distancing recommendations were\u00a0 having an effect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":14222,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4941],"tags":[4959,4955,4949,2939,2929],"class_list":["post-13697","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-responding-to-covid-19","tag-twitter-social-mobility-index","tag-social-distancing","tag-covid-19","tag-twitter","tag-social-media","issue-summer-2020"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.0 - 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