New DragonAlert App Gets Positive Rating

As the new DragonAlert app is finally out, there are many questions as to what exactly it is and what it has to offer. 

After testing it out, I got a bit of an intake as to what it is and what all the essentials to it can do for the people who choose to use it.

When I first opened up the app, I saw three red boxes and five white boxes. I’m honestly not sure if the colors had any significance or not. The first red box says “Emergency Contacts.” Under “Emergency Contacts,” you get four options. Either to call 911, campus security, or call local police for a non-emergency.

I think one of the best tools on this app is the “Friend Walk” tool. It allows you to phone a friend immediately when you’re on your way from anywhere. As soon as you pick a contact, the app will then send that contact a link to your exact location. They can then watch you as you walk to your destination. If you or your friend were to disconnect, it will send you a notification that asks you if you want to contact emergency services. When you finally make it to your destination, click the button that says “finish trip” and disconnect.

Under the next button, it says “Emergency Plans.” This concludes if you were to see anything that basically says “DANGER” you can use these resources to find out what you can do and if you can’t, it’ll notify emergency services. Some of the plans include plans for natural hazards, threat of violence, evacuation, fire safety, poisoning, etc. When you click one, it gives you advice on how to help yourself get away from it.

Support resources are an essential resource that could come useful for some of the students here. It allows you to get academic advising, sexual assault help, student health services and mental health counseling. I love that they added the “mental health counseling,” because there’s so many fighting invisible demons around here and they’re so scared or embarrassed to ever say anything to anyone.

The “Social Escape” feature allows you to get a fake phone call from the operator designed for this app, and they will phone you whenever you need them to (by a click of a button) and it will give you a reason for you to leave. I personally could have used this feature a few weeks ago, so I definitely know this feature may be used multiple times.

The only thing I’d say that lacks a little bit on the app as I’ve tried it multiple times and tried the different features, it freezes on the main screen and I constantly have to close out of it and go back onto it. That may come at a very inconvenient time when someone needs one of the features. 

Overall, I’d say this is a very good, useful app. 

Tatum James is a Jetmore freshman studying journalism. You can email her at thehutchinsoncollegian@gmail.com.

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