Emergency alerts can save lives, but only if people pay attention to them.

A recent study by two USM researchers on the effectiveness of alerts has some interesting findings. The study found, among other things, that people tend to listen to family members and friends, regardless of what emergency alerts they have received on their smartphones.

“They are going to rely on family and friends,” professor David Cochran, one of the researchers, said. “When it comes to taking an action, especially evacuation, they rely on family and friends for what action they are going to take — ‘Hey, are you guys also going?’

”The message is targeting the individual, but we act as a group. That was an interesting finding we didn’t expect. It’s really about peer decisions.”

Listening to family members or friends isn’t always best, but it’s difficult to be the one family on your street evacuating during a disaster when everyone else is staying put. We tend to value the opinions of people we know over those we don’t, even when it comes to experts trying to save our lives.

The study also showed other flaws in the emergency alert system.

By law, the alerts that are sent to smartphones can only be 90 characters. That’s often not enough room to provide people with enough information to make a decision.

The Federal Communications Commission is in the process of increasing the length to 360 characters in response to the results of the studies done for homeland security, Cochran said.

The other obvious flaw in the wireless alert system is that lower-income or elderly residents may not have smartphones that can receive the emergency alerts. For those people, old-fashioned alerts on radio and TV are a must. Sirens are also still effective in reaching those people. But for any emergency alert to be effective, people have to pay attention and heed the advice of the experts.