4 ms·

Phones without an active sim can still dial 911. Risky to give to kids, unless they're older.

by yamtaddle 4y ago

lostmsu 4y ago
Never heard anyone complain about this. You must have had some rare things coincide to get to that conclusion.
- yamtaddle 4y ago
  What do you mean? The phones can dial 911. That's just a fact. Curious young kids have been dialing 911 just to see what happens since before cell phones existed.
  - lostmsu 4y ago
    I mean that lack of people complaining means kids don't to it.
    - kortilla 4y ago
      Who would complain?
      - lostmsu 4y ago
        Basically anyone with kids would tell that as a story, if it happened to them or to their friends.
      - public_defender 4y ago
        There is actually a whole professional person whose job is to complain about this. When a kid dials 911 and the cops come and arrest people for no good reason, somebody is almost guaranteed to complain about it. It's me. I wake up in the morning, have coffee, put on my pants, then go to court and formally complain about things like this all day.
        fallat 4y ago
        The Public Defender strikes!
  - qup 4y ago
    In that case, what's the risk?
    - yamtaddle 4y ago
      1) It's not great to tie up emergency resources without good reason. 2) It can get you angry, threatening call-backs from the authorities. 3) It can make annoyed and/or on-guard (because there might be an actual emergency of unknown nature) cops show up at your door—and if it happens more than once, there may be legal consequences in play, and possibly even the first time if they're in an especially foul mood. Consider that a young kid might well dial it over and over not even realizing the call's going through (if they don't know what it looks like when the call's been answered, and are used to speaker-phone mode and video calls and aren't used to putting the phone to their ear, which is true for a lot of young kids these days). It's probably fine for most 7+ year olds, but PBS Kids has a ton of content targeted much younger, and even kids 4-5 years old can usually learn to use the app pretty quickly. There's a faq on the 911.gov site advising parents to take the batteries out of phones they give to young kids, for this exact reason. It also advises that, if you accidentally call the number, you stay on the line to explain what happened so it's not mistaken for a real call, rather than hanging up—young kids are highly likely not do to this, and to instead hang up or just leave the line open without saying anything.
      - arglebargle123 4y ago
        I think you're really overselling the risk here. At most any given kid is going to do this once, and the vast majority not at all.
        yamtaddle 4y ago
        Jesus, I never expected these responses. Yeah, sure, do whatever I guess.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
  - jkestner 4y ago
    We have an epidemic of statistically unlikely things that people get disproportionately worried about, but this one needs more punching up to capture the public’s imagination.
jefftk 4y ago
It's possible, but it takes about five steps: click emergency or open the dialer, press 9, press 1, press 1, press call. At least with my kids they've had the maturity to only call 911 when it was appropriate long before they would have been able to figure that out on its own. (And I taught them how to do this on my phone as soon as I thought they were old enough to do it, around 4.5y, in case something happened to me while I was watching them.)
- schwartzworld 4y ago
  My daughter accidentally discovered that my pixel phone dials 911 if you press the power button 5 times in a row. Very easy to do without meaning to.
jedberg 4y ago
I hide the dialer deep in the menu. I also keep the phone on airplane mode. To accidentally call 911 they'd have to find the dialer, and press 9-1-1 in the right order. At this point they're old enough to know better, and before they were old enough, they didn't know what it was, so doing it maliciously would be unlikely. Also since the phone is on airplane mode, they'd also have to disable that first, because even emergency mode doesn't work in airplane mode.

Phones without an active sim can still dial 911. Risky to give to kids, unless they're older.

lostmsu 4y ago

Never heard anyone complain about this. You must have had some rare things coincide to get to that conclusion.

yamtaddle 4y ago
What do you mean? The phones can dial 911. That's just a fact. Curious young kids have been dialing 911 just to see what happens since before cell phones existed.
- lostmsu 4y ago
  I mean that lack of people complaining means kids don't to it.
  - kortilla 4y ago
    Who would complain?
    - lostmsu 4y ago
      Basically anyone with kids would tell that as a story, if it happened to them or to their friends.
    - public_defender 4y ago
      There is actually a whole professional person whose job is to complain about this. When a kid dials 911 and the cops come and arrest people for no good reason, somebody is almost guaranteed to complain about it. It's me. I wake up in the morning, have coffee, put on my pants, then go to court and formally complain about things like this all day.
      - fallat 4y ago
        The Public Defender strikes!
- qup 4y ago
  In that case, what's the risk?
  - yamtaddle 4y ago
    1) It's not great to tie up emergency resources without good reason. 2) It can get you angry, threatening call-backs from the authorities. 3) It can make annoyed and/or on-guard (because there might be an actual emergency of unknown nature) cops show up at your door—and if it happens more than once, there may be legal consequences in play, and possibly even the first time if they're in an especially foul mood. Consider that a young kid might well dial it over and over not even realizing the call's going through (if they don't know what it looks like when the call's been answered, and are used to speaker-phone mode and video calls and aren't used to putting the phone to their ear, which is true for a lot of young kids these days). It's probably fine for most 7+ year olds, but PBS Kids has a ton of content targeted much younger, and even kids 4-5 years old can usually learn to use the app pretty quickly. There's a faq on the 911.gov site advising parents to take the batteries out of phones they give to young kids, for this exact reason. It also advises that, if you accidentally call the number, you stay on the line to explain what happened so it's not mistaken for a real call, rather than hanging up—young kids are highly likely not do to this, and to instead hang up or just leave the line open without saying anything.
    - arglebargle123 4y ago
      I think you're really overselling the risk here. At most any given kid is going to do this once, and the vast majority not at all.
      - yamtaddle 4y ago
        Jesus, I never expected these responses. Yeah, sure, do whatever I guess.
        deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
- jkestner 4y ago
  We have an epidemic of statistically unlikely things that people get disproportionately worried about, but this one needs more punching up to capture the public’s imagination.

jefftk 4y ago

It's possible, but it takes about five steps: click emergency or open the dialer, press 9, press 1, press 1, press call. At least with my kids they've had the maturity to only call 911 when it was appropriate long before they would have been able to figure that out on its own. (And I taught them how to do this on my phone as soon as I thought they were old enough to do it, around 4.5y, in case something happened to me while I was watching them.)

schwartzworld 4y ago
My daughter accidentally discovered that my pixel phone dials 911 if you press the power button 5 times in a row. Very easy to do without meaning to.

jedberg 4y ago

I hide the dialer deep in the menu. I also keep the phone on airplane mode. To accidentally call 911 they'd have to find the dialer, and press 9-1-1 in the right order. At this point they're old enough to know better, and before they were old enough, they didn't know what it was, so doing it maliciously would be unlikely. Also since the phone is on airplane mode, they'd also have to disable that first, because even emergency mode doesn't work in airplane mode.