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Social distancing beliefs and human mobility: Evidence from Twitter

Author

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  • Simon Porcher
  • Thomas Renault
Abstract
We construct a novel database containing hundreds of thousands geotagged messages related to the COVID-19 pandemic sent on Twitter. We create a daily index of social distancing—at the state level—to capture social distancing beliefs by analyzing the number of tweets containing keywords such as “stay home”, “stay safe”, “wear mask”, “wash hands” and “social distancing”. We find that an increase in the Twitter index of social distancing on day t-1 is associated with a decrease in mobility on day t. We also find that state orders, an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases, precipitation and temperature contribute to reducing human mobility. Republican states are also less likely to enforce social distancing. Beliefs shared on social networks could both reveal the behavior of individuals and influence the behavior of others. Our findings suggest that policy makers can use geotagged Twitter data—in conjunction with mobility data—to better understand individual voluntary social distancing actions.

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  • Simon Porcher & Thomas Renault, 2021. "Social distancing beliefs and human mobility: Evidence from Twitter," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(3), pages 1-12, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0246949
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0246949
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    1. > Economics of Welfare > Health Economics > Economics of Pandemics > Specific pandemics > Covid-19 > Health > Distancing and Lockdown > Measurement and effect on mobility

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    1. Ao Zhang & Hao Yang & Xiang Wu & Xiaowei Luo & Jingqi Gao, 2021. "Development and Validation of the Coping Capacity Measurement Scale of Public Health Emergencies in China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(1), pages 1-16, December.
    2. Valerio Astuti & Marta Crispino & Marco Langiulli & Juri Marcucci, 2022. "Textual analysis of a Twitter corpus during the COVID-19 pandemics," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 692, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    3. Javier Cabezas & Daniela Moctezuma & Alberto Fernández-Isabel & Isaac Martín de Diego, 2021. "Detecting Emotional Evolution on Twitter during the COVID-19 Pandemic Using Text Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(13), pages 1-20, June.

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