Evidence map›Paper›PMID 37099615›Full record

ArticlePloS one2023

Twitter mobility dynamics during the COVID-19 pandemic: A case study of London.

Chen Zhong, Robin Morphet, Mitsuo Yoshida

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in PloS one, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

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3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed.

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4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

3 authors.

Chen ZhongCenter for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London, London, United Kingdom.ORCID 0000-0003-3582-1266
Robin MorphetCenter for Advanced Spatial Analysis, University College London, London, United Kingdom.ORCID 0000-0002-8203-8429
Mitsuo YoshidaInstitute of Business Sciences, University of Tsukuba, Tsukuba, Japan.ORCID 0000-0002-0735-1116

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The current COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly impacted people's lifestyles and travel behaviours, which may persist post-pandemic. An effective monitoring tool that allows us to track the level of change is vital for controlling viral transmission, predicting travel and activity demand and, in the long term, for economic recovery. In this paper, we propose a set of Twitter mobility indices to explore and visualise changes in people's travel and activity patterns, demonstrated through a case study of London. We collected over 2.3 million geotagged tweets in the Great London Area (GLA) from Jan 2019 -Feb 2021. From these, we extracted daily trips, origin-destination matrices, and spatial networks. Mobility indices were computed based on these, with the year 2019 as a pre-Covid baseline. We found that in London, (1) People are making fewer but longer trips since March 2020. (2) In 2020, travellers showed comparatively reduced interest in central and sub-central activity locations compared to those in outer areas, whereas, in 2021, there is a sign of a return to the old norm. (3) Contrary to some relevant literature on mobility and virus transmission, we found a poor spatial relationship at the Middle Layer Super Output Area (MSOA) level between reported COVID-19 cases and Twitter mobility. It indicated that daily trips detected from geotweets and their most likely associated social, exercise and commercial activities are not critical causes for disease transmission in London. Aware of the data limitations, we also discuss the representativeness of Twitter mobility by comparing our proposed measures to more established mobility indices. Overall, we conclude that mobility patterns obtained from geo-tweets are valuable for continuously monitoring urban changes at a fine spatiotemporal scale.

Indexed as

COVID-19Social MediaHumansLondonPandemicsTravel

Identifiers

PMID37099615
PMCPMC10132666

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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.