Kimmo Kaski, Aalto University School of Science

Join us for a talk by Kimmo Kaski (Aalto University School of Science, Finland; Wolfson College, Oxford University, UK; External Faculty, Complexity Science Hub Vienna) on Friday, October 6, at 2:00 pm at the Hub in Room 201.

All living organisms, including humans, have internal biological or circadian clock that helps them anticipate and adapt to the regular rhythm of the day. The timings of human activities are marked by circadian clocks which in turn are entrained to different environmental signals. In an urban environment, the presence of artificial lighting and various social cues tend to disrupt the natural entrainment with the sunlight. However, it is not completely understood to what extent this is the case. Here we exploit the large-scale data analysis techniques to study the mobile phone calling activity of people in large cities to infer the dynamics of urban daily rhythms. From the calling patterns of about 1,000,000 users spread over different cities but lying inside the same time-zone, we show that the onset and termination of the calling activity synchronizes with the east-west progression of the sun. We also find that the onset and termination of the calling activity of users follows yearly dynamics, varying across seasons, and that its timings are entrained to solar midnight. Furthermore, we show that the average mid-sleep time of people living in urban areas depends on the age and gender of each cohort, most likely as a result of biological and social factors.