Following the 2007 Virginia Tech tragedies, Boston University implemented the Send Word Now system to alert students about incidents on campus. The system sends out automated phone calls, text messages and emails to students about everything from assaults to snow days and power outages. But in the university’s attempt to keep students safe and notified, they are also bombarding students with notifications to their personal cell phones and school emails, running the risk of desensitizing students to the messages by inundating them too often for too many reasons.
While we applaud BU for implementing any system that could help us in case of an emergency or even have the potential to save lives, the university must be aware that it walks a fine line when using this technology. BU Police Department officials have recognized that too many updates and alerts could be ignored by students, and this is a concern. So while some incidents merit notification &-&- any message at all after the alleged Jan. 20 assault in the College of Arts and Sciences basement in the middle of classes, for example, might have been nice &-&- there is a time and a place.
If we’re constantly being notified about the little things, eventually students will start to ignore the alerts and maybe someday neglect to check their phone or email about the big things. It is a grim outlook to imagine we might someday overlook notifications about gunmen, fires or other serious crimes because our inboxes were flooded the day before by power outage problems.
BU should continue to use systems like Send Word Now, but perhaps a better understanding of certain situations and how they rank, either above or below others, in terms of safety and importance should be implemented when using the technology and its many types of alerts. A system could determine the necessary notifications needed in order to alert a student, so when the power goes out in the School of Management and the building needs to be evacuated &-&- common sense, you’d think, since most students would find it near impossible to accomplish anything in the dark &-&- an email or just one text would be plenty for the majority of the students concentrated in central campus and in other colleges. That way, those unaffected students will know the next time they receive an alert that something really serious is actually going on.
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