[conspire] Alarm fatigue (was: Re: Did you guys feel the 4.2 earthquake today?)

[paulz at ieee.org]

 For the alert to be useful, a decision to send it needs to be made in a fraction of a second.  Part of the calculation of magnitude is how long the shaking lasts.  So the initial guestimate will likely often be quite different from the calculation that has more data including readings from seismographs in different places.  But by then everyone who will be effected by the quake will have felt it.
This causes me to think about the time on the receiving end.  This morning, I heard a noise from my cell.  Wasn't clearly different from any random message.  Most of the time, I don't just stop whatever to read yet another message. This time, I decided I might as well see what it was. But I had no sense of urgency.   So it was quite a few seconds before I reached for the cell, ... and read the message.
When I did read the message, I took a step backward into a doorway and paused.  

    On Wednesday, October 18, 2023 at 06:33:10 PM PDT, Michael Paoli <michael.paoli at cal.berkeley.edu> wrote:  
 
 4.1 (preliminary when I peeked earlier today) / 4.2 ...

Nukes raining down on HI.US., test alert just a couple weeks or so ago
... and ... now this.
4.1 / 4.2 you almost have to have your butt sitting atop it to even feel it.
And given where it was, and how far away I was when I (and many
others) got the alert,
and advising us to essentially duck and cover, and the quite low magnitude ...
I'm starting to suspect those in charge of sending these alerts and tests
haven't well learned the lessons of alarm fatigue.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alarm_fatigue
Essentially what they're teaching folks so far is if you get an alert
on your phone from
the government, ignore it, because it (probably) doesn't matter.
Yeah, very effective way to quickly make a powerful quite useful
and potentially valuable tool, much less useful/valuable.

Amber etc. alerts I disabled long ago.  Most of the time I'd get these
and be in office at work, or at home ... telling me to watch for some
particular vehicle heading along the highways ... not very useful or
relevant.  Signal to noise ratio rendered it effectively useless to me,
even if I wanted to do something useful with it ... so ... disabled 'em.

So ... 4.1 / 4.2 ... Isleton?  Still waiting for those damage reports.
So ... how many buildings seriously damaged or collapsed?
How many seriously injured or killed?
Oh, ... two cans, from a precariously balanced highly stacked
display at one grocery store fell, ht the floor, but weren't even
seriously dented?  Maybe?  And ... you notified how many millions of
people to duck and cover for this quake?  Uh huh.
"been inspecting the area for possible earthquake damage but haven't found any"
"no reports of damage"
"working with partners to assess any damage"
"haven't heard of any major damage"
"no damage"
"pack of cigarettes" ... a pack of cigarettes fell. OMG,
how many people did that kill and injure and send to the hospitals?

And yes, I also got alert on phone.

On Wed, Oct 18, 2023 at 5:02 PM Elise Scher <elise.scher01 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> No. But there was an alert on my cellphone. Later there was an explanatory email from the school district I am teaching with.
>
> On Wed, Oct 18, 2023 at 4:05 PM Steve Litt <slitt at troubleshooters.com> wrote:
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> Did you guys feel the 4.2 earthquake today?
>>
>> SteveT
>>
>> Steve Litt
>>
>> Autumn 2023 featured book: Rapid Learning for the 21st Century
>> http://www.troubleshooters.com/rl21

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