Universal underpinning of human mobility in the real world and cyberspace

TL;DR

This paper proposes a minimal memory-based random walk model that captures the universal statistical behaviors of human mobility in both real-world and cyberspace, validated by large-scale data.

Contribution

It introduces a unified, simple model explaining human movement patterns across physical and digital environments, advancing understanding of underlying dynamics.

Findings

Model reproduces key statistical features of human mobility

Validated with large-scale mobile phone and online commerce data

Suggests a universal mechanism underlying human movement behaviors

Abstract

Human movements in the real world and in cyberspace affect not only dynamical processes such as epidemic spreading and information diffusion but also social and economical activities such as urban planning and personalized recommendation in online shopping. Despite recent efforts in characterizing and modeling human behaviors in both the real and cyber worlds, the fundamental dynamics underlying human mobility have not been well understood. We develop a minimal, memory-based random walk model in limited space for reproducing, with a single parameter, the key statistical behaviors characterizing human movements in both spaces. The model is validated using big data from mobile phone and online commerce, suggesting memory-based random walk dynamics as the universal underpinning for human mobility, regardless of whether it occurs in the real world or in cyberspace.