We all know how boomers tell their grandkids how smartphones weren’t used back in the day. Or how many of them blame everything bad on kids being on their phones all the time. But what if checking notifications could save an innocent child’s life? By exploiting our addiction to phone screens for a higher purpose, more than 1,000 innocent children have been saved by what we now call Amber Alerts.
Many of you are probably familiar with the AMBER Alert Program. It is a system that shares photos and information of missing kids via the mass media. Did you know, though, that it was named after an actual person? Amber Hagerman. Amber, died 25 years ago and her killer has still not been found. A member of Amber’s Community, Diana Simone, a self-described "ordinary woman and mother", called a local radio station after her death. She wondered why broadcasters issued things like severe weather warnings but did not provide public alerts when a child was kidnapped. Just maybe, if the community had been aware of the abduction and the suspect's description, as well as his car, they would have been able to locate the Amber still alive, right? Remember, that it was way before Facebook or any social media. This kind of thinking was ahead of time. Diana was like the Elon Musk of abductions. That might be a little bit of an exaggeration, but what I’m saying… the solution seem obvious now, in hightsight… but she was the one to suggest it.
Last year, exactly 25 years had passed since the last time anyone saw Amber Hagerman alive. A 9-year old girl was the victim of a brutal murder, but if there can be a brightside… her death has helped save so many others.
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