“Adolescent Travel Patterns: Pilot Data Indicating Distance From Home Varies by Time of Day and Day of Week”
Satellite-tracking technology may help pinpoint where adolescents are when they engage in certain harmful behaviors, say researchers involved in a pilot study published in the April edition of the Journal of Adolescent Health.
The study aimed to see if the global-positioning-system technology in cellphones could monitor the location of teenagers who were willing to allow it; tracking where adolescents spend their time might help in studying how location influences health, the scholars say.
For the study, girls ages 14 to 17 were given GPS-equipped cellphones for a week. Most of the time, the phones allowed the participants’ location to be tracked every five minutes.
