Critical Amber Alert

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Ducay

Look online, there are plenty of people uninstalling and deactivating the app or functionality. (That ignores all the people suggesting people who dont like it should turn off their phones at night). They now get no notifications. Improving the system to have it just as functional while not driving people off is the goal.

That’s not true, as the alerts go out regardless if you have the app. There is no “functionality” to turn off, for good reason.

You can read more here: https://emergencyalert.alberta.ca/co...less.html#faq3

Again, shutting your phone off is different then having the system figure out when you don’t want to get an alert is different... how? You want the system to do the work, got it, but I would suggest doing it yourself. Don’t want to be disturbed by your phone? Shut it off or to silent (note, DND is not the same thing). Don’t want it to be so loud? Turn down your volume.

There is no “driving people off.” So if that’s the goal, great news, they’ve accomplished that by literally making it impossible for you to opt out of the alerts.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Okay. Odd. It’s not even a separate app on the iPhone. I assumed everybody simply got it.

They do, the app allows you to check details from the app or check warnings that are not at the alert stage (such as dangerous weather short of a Tornado, for example).

The alerts go out to everyone when there is an actual emergency, regardless of whether you have the app.

[Ducay]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

They do, the app allows you to check details from the app or check warnings that are not at the alert stage (such as dangerous weather short of a Tornado, for example).

The alerts go out to everyone when there is an actual emergency, regardless of whether you have the app.

Did you even bother googling before posting? Effectively every device you can disable the functionality. All that depends is the varying degrees of difficulty, but people are doing it, and that could have repercussions. Hence tweaks are likely warranted.

On my Galaxy S9 I can litrally tick a box to pick which alerts I want. You could turn off Amber Alerts in less than 5 seconds

[SportsJunky]

Don’t most of us use our smartphones for alarm clocks? I don’t want to put my alarm clock in another room.

[Buff]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Yes it will. I'll bet you $20 as well. That's $40 I've got at stake now. Kids are getting phones younger and younger. Mine had them at nine. Nine-year-olds don't need to be jarred awake at midnight for Amber Alerts.

The simplest solution is to not give your kids a phone a such a young age. They dont need it. You cannot give me one reason to rationalize it. They simply do not need it. No excuses. I keep hearing about research on how kids having devices is detrimental to their brains development. I have seen it first hand wih my own kids. They cannot control themselves. Most adults cannot control themselves when it comes to phone/device usage. Don't tell me otherwise about your kids because you would be lying to me and especially yourself.

[Joborule]

I cannot believe that we've had pages in this thread bitching about an alert FOR A MISSING CHILD.

The whole point of a emergency alert is to alert the public of something they need to be aware about. It wouldn't be effective if everyone wasn't getting it.

What if your life was actually in danger by an attack or natural disaster, and your alert didn't go off to protect your beauty sleep. Who cares about your well being, so your sleep doesn't get interrupted for the very, very rare time.

Besides, if you set your phone to do not disturb, and go into your emergency alert settings, you should be able to prevent them from making sound anyway. So you get what you want.

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Yes it will. I'll bet you $20 as well. That's $40 I've got at stake now. Kids are getting phones younger and younger. Mine had them at nine. Nine-year-olds don't need to be jarred awake at midnight for Amber Alerts.

Why is their phone in their room.

That’s just stupid.
You do know there is a button that turns them off right?

[GGG]

Originally Posted by Buff

The simplest solution is to not give your kids a phone a such a young age. They dont need it. You cannot give me one reason to rationalize it. They simply do not need it. No excuses. I keep hearing about research on how kids having devices is detrimental to their brains development. I have seen it first hand wih my own kids. They cannot control themselves. Most adults cannot control themselves when it comes to phone/device usage. Don't tell me otherwise about your kids because you would be lying to me and especially yourself.

As soon as you start leaving your kid at home for short periods of time they need a phone. Now you could put in a land line but that seems ridiculous. So nine seems fairly reasonable to give a kid a phone.

You can manage your kids device usage.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by Ducay

Did you even bother googling before posting? Effectively every device you can disable the functionality. All that depends is the varying degrees of difficulty, but people are doing it, and that could have repercussions. Hence tweaks are likely warranted.

On my Galaxy S9 I can litrally tick a box to pick which alerts I want. You could turn off Amber Alerts in less than 5 seconds

I have, and sorry to spoil your milk, but it still doesn’t disable them. That’s an American functionality which does not work in Canada. The CRTC overrides it, and if you googled it before posting, you would see that all the people who have tried it in Canada still get the alerts.

Go ahead and turn it off and bring up this post next time you get one. It doesn’t work in Canada. Don’t know what else to tell you. The priority levels are different in the US, but here everything is sent out at a high priority.

Everyone is getting these in Canada regardless of what you think you’re doing to your phone.

[Huntingwhale]

I'm glad we all get those notifications. It really is ''all hands on deck''. It works, and I'm glad the child was found. But I can totally understand a bunch of people getting upset if this would have happened at say 4am on a work night.

I would be interested to know if when the child was found, it was a direct result from a tip from the Amber Alert.

[Northendzone]

Good grief folks, it is not like this is an alert for every set of missing keys. If you don’t want to be disturbed, turn your phone off, otherwise accept the fact that everyone once and a while you are going to get an amber alert, and sometimes they may come at 1am.

[bob-loblaw]

Originally Posted by Northendzone

Good grief folks, it is not like this is an alert for every set of missing keys. If you don’t want to be disturbed, turn your phone off, otherwise accept the fact that everyone once and a while you are going to get an amber alert, and sometimes they may come at 1am.

I read an off-duty police officer spotted them. Not sure if he would have noticed them otherwise.

[SebC]

A lot of Helen Lovejoys in this thread, and a lot of people dismissing the value of sleep. Adequate sleep is a legal requirement for certain jobs for good reason. It is absolutely reasonable to question the tradeoffs here when it comes to waking people who are extremely unlikely to be useful.

[Joborule]

Originally Posted by SebC

A lot of Helen Lovejoys in this thread, and a lot of people dismissing the value of sleep. Adequate sleep is a legal requirement for certain jobs for good reason. It is absolutely reasonable to question the tradeoffs here when it comes to waking people who are extremely unlikely to be useful.

Okay, if you don't want to be disturbed period, no matter what, turn your phone off.

If you're leaving your phone on, then you are allowing for it to notify, and awake you for some type of message or call. You wouldn't be bothered by it then since you've set yourself up for it, so why is a very rare emergency alert different?

It strikes me odd that getting the alert during the day time would be no big deal, but in the night time it is. An emergency is a emergency at any point of the day.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Joborule

If you're leaving your phone on, then you are allowing for it to notify, and awake you for some type of message or call.

Most phones these days have more complexity than this, and you know it.

[Joborule]

Originally Posted by SebC

Most phones these days have more complexity than this, and you know it.

So? Doesn't change anything about what I've said. If you REALLY don't want to be disturbed under any circumstance, have phone off.

[GGG]

My phone just vibrated for the Amber Alert. I don’t get what the big deal is.

Why would you have your phone left in away that this makes noise for this and be annoyed by it. If your phone is on for emergencies at night then it fulfilled its purpose.

[vegasbound]

Originally Posted by Huntingwhale

I'm glad we all get those notifications. It really is ''all hands on deck''. It works, and I'm glad the child was found. But I can totally understand a bunch of people getting upset if this would have happened at say 4am on a work night.

I would be interested to know if when the child was found, it was a direct result from a tip from the Amber Alert.

I saw on Twitter that it was an off duty cop who spotted the child and RCMP in Okotoks arrested the mom shortly after.

[midniteowl]

For all the people that complained about this emergency alert, just imagine if your kids got abducted, wouldn't you want as many people as possible notify the abduction and on the look out? Or your stance won't change that the alert is a nuisance and wake you up from your beauty sleep?

[FurnaceFace]

I had returned home from some long flights, went to bed early, and had my phone off. When I turned it on this morning I didn’t get the alerts. I wonder if a design improvement would be to still send the alerts out to phones which were off. I’m not sure that’s possible but it would be a good feature so someone like me knew about it. It was over by the time my phone was on but for future alerts it could be helpful.