Exploring Post COVID-19 Outbreak Intradaily Mobility Pattern Change in College Students: a GPS-focused Smartphone Sensing Study

TL;DR

This study analyzes how college students' daily mobility patterns changed during COVID-19 using GPS data, revealing shifts in movement timing, reduced variability, and altered mood-mobility correlations post-pandemic onset.

Contribution

It provides novel insights into intradaily mobility changes and their association with mood among students during COVID-19 using GPS sensing and analytical methods.

Findings

Students showed increased midday movement during COVID-19.

Reduced intradaily variability in students' mobility patterns.

Lower correlation between mobility and negative mood during the pandemic.

Abstract

With the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, most colleges and universities move to restrict campus activities, reduce indoor gatherings and move instruction online. These changes required that students adapt and alter their daily routines accordingly. To investigate patterns associated with these behavioral changes, we collected smartphone sensing data using the Beiwe platform from two groups of undergraduate students at a major North American university, one from January to March of 2020 (74 participants), the other from May to August (52 participants), to observe the differences in students' daily life patterns before and after the start of the pandemic. In this paper, we focus on the mobility patterns evidenced by GPS signal tracking from the students' smartphones and report findings using several analytical methods including principal component analysis, circadian rhythm analysis, and predictive modeling of perceived sadness levels using mobility-based digital metrics. Our findings suggest that compared to the pre-COVID group, students in the mid-COVID group generally (1) registered a greater amount of midday movement than movement in the morning (8-10am) and in the evening (7-9pm), as opposed to the other way around; (2) exhibited significantly less intradaily variability in their daily movement, and (3) had a significant lower correlation between their mobility patterns and negative mood.