I have also imagined that high levels of mobility exacerbate the shifting baselines syndrome since the baseline would then be spatially inconsistent. But there is hope: humans don't move too much. A new study published in Nature and written up in The New York Times tracked the movements of 100,000 Europeans via their cellphones and found that they don't move far from home. This is good news in terms of being able to recognize change in one's environment. It also inspires me because travel might not add to much to our quality of life since, on average, we seem to naturally be homebodies.
Humans are largely immobile
Environment
Comments
I suspect you would get quite different results in the USA. We are the folks who moved. The Europeans are the folks who stayed home.
Posted by: Jim Thomerson | June 6, 2008 11:39 AM
While I wouldn't phrase it like Jim above, I would definitely be curious in seeing some sorts of results from other areas. Europe has a high population density and is generally prosperous, and large parts are very homogeneous culturally. None of these factors would seem to encourage high mobility. Also:
So there is no good way to know what these demographics even were. Also note that the time scale was only six months. This is short enough that we can't even see if it takes regular infrequent travel into account: for example, people going on vacation on a yearly basis. It only shows that people stay near home to satisfy their daily needs. Again, see the demographics.
Given this, I don't think we can say anything about people being "homebodies" in any real sense. Instead, I think the message of the study is probably "people who live near lots of other people in a prosperous and homogeneous setting are not likely to be highly mobile on a short time scale". And given the agreement with the phone company (whose idea was that?!) it makes the data even harder to interpret.
Posted by: Adam | June 6, 2008 12:53 PM
On the face of it, this guy's family only moved half a mile in 9,000 years Cheddar Man . 'Lack of curiosity heritable" shock.
(And yes, it is where the cheese comes from.)
Pete
Posted by: Pete Berry | June 6, 2008 1:21 PM
Cool about Cheddar man. And while this study is flawed in many ways I think it is a nice early attempt to track movement and that cell phones are a legitimate proxy. Obviously, with the transportation industry being what it is, humans travel a lot. It's just that it seems that many (even those in the rich countries of Europe) don't travel a lot, too...
Posted by: Jennifer L. Jacquet | June 6, 2008 1:59 PM
I would buck that trend hugely, as would all of my family extending back to 1750 (or whenever formal records started). We're expatriate/immigrant for about as far back as you can track in UK records and the whole family is all over the world.
The study is quite flawed though. Quite a lot of people would have to stay in one position for work or study over an extended period of time and then travel.
The video was great though.
Posted by: Charlie | June 7, 2008 10:20 AM
I haven't seen the Nature story, only the NYT story and comment here. In the comments here, how did we get from "moving," apparently meaning (in the study) walking/driving/being transported from place to place in daily life, through "moving far from home" (as in, perhaps, changing domiciles?), to concluding that "many (even those in the rich countries of Europe) don't travel a lot, too..."
Of course, there are "many" people, so "many" people do and don't do many things. But for instance, the executive summary of a report by Euromonitor Intl. (purchasable for $1,900) claims that in 2006, approximately 5.4 million Danes made 6 million holiday trips within Denmark and made 14.4 million journeys on travel abroad. Sounds like a lot of travelling by this group of "stay at home" Europeans.
Posted by: Daniel Murphy | June 7, 2008 12:25 PM
I'd love to see someone put this in the perspective of other animals, and since marine ones are the ones I'm most familiar with, I'm imagining a graph of larval dispersal, juvenile home range, and adult home range. Daily travel for forage (aka, commuting to work and the store) could be accounted for, but I'd be curious how we compare in terms of living close to our parents, in similar or different habitats, etc. Who needs a dissertation topic?
Posted by: Kate Wing | June 10, 2008 11:19 AM
Kate, I love this idea!
Posted by: Jennifer L. Jacquet | June 10, 2008 12:01 PM