Alert: This Is About Alerts!

Plus, Widow's Bay and Real Housewives of Rhode Island (unrelated).

Because I am both extremely nosy and cursed with crippling anxiety, I have the Citizen app on my phone, as (I assume) do many other people. If you don’t know what that is, per its fairly comprehensive Wiki, “Citizen is a mobile app that sends users location-based safety alerts in real time. It allows users to read updates about ongoing reports, broadcast live video, and leave comments. The app uses radio antennas installed in major cities to monitor 911 communications, with employees filtering the audio to generate alerts.” Citizen used to be somewhat controversial — back when it was called, no shit, “Vigilante,” like, dial it back, how did you think that would go? — but the name-change and a bunch of bad press meant it, with the passage of time, evolved into more of a mobile police scanner married with Twitter’s old Periscope functionality.

Whether being alerted to a variety of emergencies in my and my loved ones’ vicinity is good for my anxiety is a case for my therapist, who I’m not…