Yeah it’s a terrible implementation. Shouldn’t have software designed by politicians. “We need it to make a huge siren sound and makes sure people have to look at it before the siren will stop! Think of the children!”
I think an SMS message would be far more effective. If I get an Amber alert in the middle of the night, I’m not reading it, I’m just shutting it off as quickly so I can to get back to sleep. It’s not like I’m going to be going out in the middle of the night to try to find a kid that went missing a hundred miles away. An SMS wouldn’t wake me up, I’ll actually read when I get up in the morning, and there’s a chance I might be able to help because the information will still be there when I’m actually outside.
Had to look it up (my county doesn’t have them), and two things seem weird to me:
Why is it text only? Wouldn’t adding a picture of the abducted child make it much more effective?
Since it can take several hours for the alert to be issued, it doesn’t really require any immediate action from the people who receive it - it makes no sense to use a special emergency protocol to distribute it.
I guess there’s something to be said for everyone simultaneously getting an alert… if someone happens to be near the car they describe, get the alert and see the license plate, they’d call it in. So I guess there’s circumstances where a hard alert where everyone has to simultaneously stop and look around could be beneficial. But yeah images could be useful, and most importantly something in your SMS history (which could have images) to refer back to seems like it would be way better.
Yeah it’s a terrible implementation. Shouldn’t have software designed by politicians. “We need it to make a huge siren sound and makes sure people have to look at it before the siren will stop! Think of the children!”
I think an SMS message would be far more effective. If I get an Amber alert in the middle of the night, I’m not reading it, I’m just shutting it off as quickly so I can to get back to sleep. It’s not like I’m going to be going out in the middle of the night to try to find a kid that went missing a hundred miles away. An SMS wouldn’t wake me up, I’ll actually read when I get up in the morning, and there’s a chance I might be able to help because the information will still be there when I’m actually outside.
Had to look it up (my county doesn’t have them), and two things seem weird to me:
I guess there’s something to be said for everyone simultaneously getting an alert… if someone happens to be near the car they describe, get the alert and see the license plate, they’d call it in. So I guess there’s circumstances where a hard alert where everyone has to simultaneously stop and look around could be beneficial. But yeah images could be useful, and most importantly something in your SMS history (which could have images) to refer back to seems like it would be way better.