Introduction
The recent decades have seen a massive revolution in the field of technology. One of these revolutions is regarding the transformation of communication and mobile phones. We have seen traditional mobile phones evolving into smartphones. Currently, smartphones are of two types: Android and iPhone, the latter being one of the most popular products in the world.
The opinion of the users about the iPhone is divided. Some people are all praises for it while others have some issues regarding it. We are going to look into one particular issue related to the iPhone and that is regarding emergency alerts.
What are emergency alerts?
In developed societies, the state plays the role of a caring mother towards its citizens. Therefore the governments step in to protect their citizens from various threats. They use different methods to do so. One of these methods is by sending emergency alerts.
In this age of technology, emergency alerts are messages sent by the government for various threats aiming to assure the safety of the public against various factors. For example, one of these factors might be protection against calamities such as blizzards, Cyclones, Floods Earthquakes, etc.
Sometimes the nature of these alerts may vary slightly and the purpose of sending these alerts might be to protect against an active shooter present at some particular site or leakage/spill of some hazardous chemical agent.
What is an Amber alert?
An Amber alert is a special kind of alert initiated by the US govt. This alert has been designed to prevent the abduction of the children. This alert operates by sending alert messages that include the number of the vehicle of the potential abductor as well as the description of the child who is abducted. These alerts also contain a contact number to call, in order to make sure that if someone has got the information, he may share it timely.
Turning off the emergency alerts: Pros vs Cons
There are some benefits of turning off the emergency alerts as well as some potential disadvantages. We’ll list them below:
Pros
- Emergency alerts are sent by gathering large data sets of mobile users’ info. The data is not segregated or filtered before sending the alerts. Therefore if you happen to be in a situation where you don’t require the alerts, repeated receipt of such alerts might be annoying for you.
For example, if there’s a weather alert and you are at your home already, you don’t need the warning alert. Receiving alerts might be frustrating at such times.
- As all mobile phone users know very well that receipt of any message or alert consumes a certain amount of battery, repeated alerts may cause your battery life to drain away. If you are already running low on battery, your phone may be powered off.
- Sometimes the alerts that you receive, trace your location and obtain other data. This data may not be safe in all instances. Hence your privacy and safety might be at stake in some instances.
Cons
- Although you might not be at risk of an emergent situation, someone you know might require the information that you receive via the emergency alert. You might not afford some harm to someone you hold dear to you, by turning these alerts off.
- Certain issues such as the safety of children are seen as a collective responsibility in developed and civilized societies. Therefore in case you turn off all such emergency alerts, that would include turning alerts like AMBER off too. By doing so, you might be shunning your responsibility of saving some innocent child’s life. The guilt of not being able to contribute towards the safety of a child might be bigger than the temporary botheration caused by the alerts themselves.
- Although there are other ways to check the weather updates, certain updates can be taken through emergency alerts only. The examples have been discussed in the lines above already. Turning off might deprive you of such updates.
How to turn off emergency alerts on iPhone
Turning off the emergency alerts on iPhone is a step-by-step process and is listed as follows:
- First of all, you need to go to the Settings app on your phone.
- Then tap on the notifications tab.
- Scroll down and tap where you find written ‘Government Alerts’.
- You may then uncheck or toggle the types of alerts that you want to stop receiving.
- Once you have turned off the required alerts, save the settings.
You are now ready to use mobile free from the hassle of emergency alerts.
Summary
An emergency alert is an essential feature of iPhone. Some users find it annoying and look forward to the means and ways to get rid of them but there are some benefits of them and they must not be looked down upon, always. In my personal opinion, keeping the emergency alerts on is more beneficial than turning them off. Also, turning them off must be avoided as long as possible.
