Article: Fildes, J. (2008). “Mobile phones expose human habits.” BBC News. Retrieved 4 June, 2008.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/science/nature/7433128.stm

Summary: As the title suggests this article concerns the discovery of human mobility habits via the use of mobile phones. In other words over 100, 000 mobile phones were tracked in an attempt to build a comprehensive picture of human movements. The study showed, that humans are creatures of habit, mostly visiting the same few spots time and time again, and that most people move less than 10km on regular basis. The study is seen as important as it can help when assessing the situation during a viral outbreak such as the Avian Flu and in the forecasting of traffic.

Previously similar studies had been performed with GPS which proved to expensive, surveys which proved unreliable and dollar bills. Dollar bills were tracked in order to reconstruct human movements however this seemed only to prove random patterns and did not give a complete picture of people s movements.

The phone tracking worked differently. Each time a participant made or received a call or text message, the location of the mobile base station relaying the data was recorded. The results showed that people moved around over a very short distance around five to 10kms and a few that moved a couple of hundred kilometers on a regular basis. A precise mathematical relationship known as the power law was established. Also, whether over long or short distances, people tended to return to the same few places over and over again.
Finally the article gave examples what else the tracking of mobile phones could accomplish, including; helping to construct real time traffic alerts, parental tracking of their children, (tracking of stolen mobile phones) and tracking of criminal suspects. For example, the technique was used by Italian police to capture Hussain Osman, one of the four men jailed for the failed suicide bombings in London on 21st July.

Note on conceptual design: From the designers point of view the mobile phone has a new conceptual function: tracking as apposed to communicating.

Note on interaction design: The study does provide anchor points, such as certain neighborhoods, where high concentrations of people often gather. This can be used in marketing and advertising as well as starting point for spreading certain messages.

Note on interface design: In today s anxious society where the thought of being catalogued in an Internet search makes us uneasy because of the big brother angst, this new mobile phone function may be rejected by society. Furthermore if criminals realize that they may be tracked via their mobile phones, they will start to use another form of communication. However chances are that no one knows they are being tracked and in this case this brings to question the ethical side of this said tracking.

Note on user group: In relation to the study that was conducted it was not obvious as to who was being tracked. These days people of all ages have a mobile phone. Obviously a child who does not own a car will presumably move less than people who do. Also the place where the measurements were being taken was not mentioned either. People in big cities often tend to move around less as they have everything they may need at their fingertips. People who live in towns may need to commute to cities in order to work or socialize. For the study to be reliable it would have to be known who they were tracking but this information must remain confidential and thus the study may not be entirely reliable. Finally people under stress or threat can behave very irregularly and irrationally and therefore it could be dangerous to rely on the power law in the case of a viral outbreak- unless the outbreak is not yet known of.