Thanks for commenting! I agree that it’s always a good idea to be mindful of reasons findings like these might not generalize.

As far as the question of having “high levels of social anxiety” vs. having “social anxiety disorder,” the measure of social anxiety used in this study was the SIAS. The researchers used a score of 34 as the cutoff between groups, which is the threshold considered indicative of social phobia. So, it’s not a linear correlation between symptoms and mobility patterns but a difference between those participants who have clinically significant levels of social anxiety (according to the SIAS, anyway) and those who don’t.

I’d be all for additional studies to see how these findings apply to people in other situations. I do also think the results are suggestive more generally that mobility data is an interesting new window into mental health conditions.

While the study has a tag for social anxiety disorder, the discussion isn’t focused on pathology, only on relative levels of social anxiety.

This is one study with a fairly homogeneous population. One should not draw conclusions from this other than that this might be worth a larger study with a more diverse sample population.