Uncovering the digital divide and the physical divide in Senegal using mobile phone data

Abstract

In this research, we first aim at developing data analytics that can derive insights about how people from different regions communicate and connect via mobile phone calls and physical movements. We uncover the digital divide (geographical segregation of phone communication patterns) and the physical divide (geographical limits of human mobility) in Senegal. The research also demonstrates that the chosen spatial unit and temporal resolution can affect the community detection results of spatial interaction graphs when analyzing human mobility patterns and exploring urban dynamics in the mobile age. We find that the daily detection has generated a more stable partition structure than an hourly one, while monthly changes also exist over time. The presented framework can help identify patterns of spatial interaction in both cyberspace and physical space with phone call detailed records in some regions where census data acquisition is difficult, especially in African countries.