07 April 2020
Johns Hopkins Uses Twitter Data to See How Effective Social Distancing Has Been in the US
Johns Hopkins University used public Twitter data to see just how effective social distancing has been in the United States since the practice began on March 16th.
The research team created the Twitter Social Mobility Index, which looked at public geotagged Twitter data to determine how well social distancing was working. They looked at 3.7 million Twitter users and almost 400 million tweets to get their information.
Some noteworthy highlights:
- They found that mobility in the United States has dropped 48.77% since social distancing began on March 16th.
- Their research showed reduced mobility in every state and territory, though it varied by location given the type of social distancing measures put in place where people live.
- The most reduced travel was in Washington, DC, with a 63.13% drop in mobility.
- The least reduced travel was in Wyoming, with a 21.54% drop in mobility.
- Larger reductions in travel were found in states that started social distancing earlier.