Editor’s Note: Kara Alaimo, an associate professor of communication at Fairleigh Dickinson University, writes about issues affecting women and social media. Her book, “Over the Influence: Why Social Media Is Toxic for Women and Girls — And How We Can Take It Back,” will be published by Alcove Press in 2024. Follow her on Instagram, Facebook and X. The opinions expressed in this commentary are her own. Read more opinion on CNN.
Americans were jolted Wednesday by the sound of loud noises from our electronic devices, as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) conducted a test of the country’s Wireless Emergency Alerts for cell phones and Emergency Alert System for television and radio at 2:20 pm ET, in coordination with the Federal Communication Commission.
The blaring noise on my phone definitely got my attention, but wasn’t particularly scary. It came through two minutes early, at 2:18 pm, and many people took to X (formerly known as Twitter) to complain about being caught off guard with the earlier-than-expected notification.
While the noise may have been jarring, constant interruptions by our phones are nothing new for most Americans. Half of 11 to 17-year-olds receive at least 237 notifications on their phones every day, according to research published last week by Common Sense Media. While this kind of continuous pinging with often trivial updates (unlike today’s interruption) can’t be good for anyone’s ability to concentrate, Wednesday’s emergency tests served an important purpose, one that will likely be increasingly needed in the future. The government needs to figure out how to use such alerts more frequently and responsibly. They should be issued by FEMA when people need to know about local or national emergencies, such as dangerous weather or episodes of violence in our communities — both of which have been increasing as of late.
Just this past Friday, life-threatening flash floods left parts of New York City underwater. Experts say we can expect more such extreme weather events in the future because climate change is making the earth’s atmosphere warmer, which allows it to hold more vapor and then release it in deluges that could overwhelm our infrastructure.
By the time I started seeing warnings to stay off roads on Friday, I had already finished my commute to work in northern New Jersey and was worried about whether I’d be able to make it home safely. But if I’d gotten an early-morning cell phone alert about the impending danger, I’d have worked from home that day.
That’s why FEMA should also be honing its ability to send regional alerts to warn Americans of local extreme weather events and other emergencies — so residents can take action in advance of them.
Another reason we need regional alerts is because episodes of domestic terrorism are also increasing, according to the Government Accountability Office — such as incidents of racially, ethnically or politically motivated violence. When events such as these are unfolding, Americans should be alerted on our phones in real time to stay out of the affected location through geographically targeted FEMA alerts.
Amber alerts should also be sent universally to Americans’ phones. Just this past Saturday, 9-year-old Charlotte Sena was kidnapped from a New York park. Thankfully, she has been returned to her family, but while she was missing it was critical for us all to keep our eyes out for her. If many people can tolerate hundreds of daily phone notifications — often about unessential things like our friends’ status updates or celebrity gossip — we should all be able to tolerate messages like this once in a while that could help save children’s lives.
FEMA should be coordinating closely with weather agencies and local law enforcement agencies and government officials across the country to share information in real time so that it can send out these kinds of hyper-local alerts.
Of course, increasing the use of these kinds of alerts will only work if they’re implemented carefully and responsibly. The fiasco that occurred in January 2018 when Hawaii sent out a false missile alert, (obviously) causing widespread panic, is a dramatic reminder of the potential for this system to go horribly wrong. One man who sued the state said the alert caused him to have a heart attack. So FEMA needs safeguards in place to ensure such false alerts never happen again — and to protect these alert systems from being hacked. On that front, it should be getting help from the government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.
FEMA also needs a better plan for helping people who have secret phones — such as domestic violence victims or undercover police officers — from being exposed when their alerts start sounding. On Tuesday, ahead of Wednesday’s test, a senior FEMA official said there wasn’t a way for people to opt out of these alerts and those who had secret phones should simply shut them off. That’s unacceptable.
We can’t expect all domestic violence victims and other vulnerable people to stay on top of media reporting in order to know about these kinds of tests in advance. While it’s understandable for FEMA to worry that an easy opt-out option would cause people to turn off notifications in an effort to avoid nuisance and end up missing critical alerts, there needs to be a silent option for the many people who truly need it.
In an era of increasing threats — from climate change to domestic violence — FEMA should be using its alert system to warn people of both national and regional emergencies. But the agency also needs a more sophisticated system for ensuring it doesn’t create other emergencies in the process.