Alarm Fatigue; In Plain English
To begin, this isn’t aimed at any one individual. If this article leaves you enraged or makes you want to steal hubcaps or shave the cat, I would suggest checking your own behavior and thoughts. You ultimately choose how to react. It isn’t anyone’s “job” to regulate your emotions for you.
Aesop’s Fable
The best example of Alarm Fatigue is Aesop’s fable, The Boy Who Cried Wolf.
In this fable, a shepherd boy is charged with protecting his flock of sheep from wolves. He gets bored and decides to trick the villagers by crying “wolf” for no reason other than his own amusement. After a while, the villagers stop reacting. Then a real wolf appears; and, when the boy tries to call for help, the villagers don’t come to help. In some variations, the wolf kills the sheep and the boy.
There have been various retellings over the years, including the short story “Matilda: Who told Lies, and was Burned to Death” from the 1907 children’s book, Cautionary Tales for Children by Hilaire Belloc.
What are alarms meant to do?
Alarms, alerts, and warnings are meant to let people know there’s something dangerous they need to react to.
When there’s a fire in a building, you pull the fire alarm. The alarm goes off, letting everyone know there’s a situation that requires their immediate attention. Everyone evacuates the building and the fire department is usually notified.
A tornado siren is meant to alert people outside they need to seek cover from a dangerous weather situation. Could be a tornado, a severe thunderstorm, or even hail. Either way, those things can hurt and people need to get inside immediately.
In hospitals, patients are often hooked up to machines that will sound an alert if their vitals get weird. The alarm sounds and the doctors and nurses come to help.
Diabetics can get an insulin pump or continuous blood glucose monitor. If their blood glucose goes too high or low, an alarm can sound to let them know they need to do something to keep from getting sick.
Words can also serve as alarms or alerts. If you scream “fire,” most likely people will look. That can be helpful if someone is attacking you in real life. Yelling certain words in airports will likely get airport security on you very quickly.
Certain words also have an emotional payload, sometimes for good reason. They describe a dangerous or extremely harmful situation or event.
So what is alarm fatigue?
Alarm fatigue is where people have had too many frequent alarms going off and stop reacting to them. It’s similar to false alarms or the “crying wolf” example from above. They eventually assume it’s yet another false alarm, another joke, or they might not even notice them at all.
For example, suppose people pull the fire alarm as a joke and do it frequently. People are going to start ignoring it. They won’t evacuate. They’ll assume someone is just being an asshole again.
If the tornado siren goes off and nothing happens, there’s the risk people won’t seek shelter. In fact, sometimes they’ll actually go to a window or go outside to see what’s happening.
Those machines in hospitals often go off for little to no reason. When you’re around them for 12 hours a day, that begins to either fade into the background noise or just becomes another annoyance. That can cause them to not hear or respond when a patient is in real distress. The result? People can die.
But it’s just a word!
Words, like alarm systems, can also experience alarm fatigue. Like Matilda or the boy from Aesop’s fables, people will eventually become desensitized and stop reacting. They might assume the person is lying, joking, or just being an asshole.
Talk too much about a massive storm that never appears, people will simply stop believing.
People sometimes lie about abuse. Sometimes it’s a “joke” or meant to manipulate a situation. The result? Many victims of domestic violence and child abuse face an uphill battle actually getting help and concerns over these false reports are among the most hotly debated.
What you can do
Alarm fatigue is something discussed constantly by professionals. Technology can help, such as algorithms meant to change an alarm tone in emergency vehicles. Newer medical equipment can funnel alerts so they go to the right people or tailor them to the patient’s needs. Training can also help.
But… what can you do? The average Tumblr user?
Educate yourself. Sexual predators and abuse exists, unfortunately. Learn how to recognize the common ploys and signs someone is a predator. False information, myths, and rumors only add confusion.
Stand up to abuse. Abusers come in all orientations, genders, ages, and sizes. It doesn’t have to leave a physical mark to be abuse. Verbal abuse is just as damaging and even more prevalent here on sites like Tumblr.
Be Skeptical. Doubt everything; question everything. The internet has a long, sordid history of trying to fool people. Fake news isn’t a new thing at all. Check sources. Check your gut. Refine your bullshit radar; shed your naïveté. As the song goes, we can’t afford to be innocent.
Thanks for reading! Take care and be safe.