You’re sitting in the study room on a Sunday evening because you’re boring and have nothing better to do with your life. Mid nose-pick, you receive a text message accompanied by a glaring red exclamation mark. It reads: “Armed robbery occurred in West Campus, Terry-Lander area. Armed suspect at large. Pls. be alert.” You’re in Terry. So now what do you do?

If you’re me, you spend the next five minutes examining the creative usage of “Pls.” and the exceedingly ambiguous terminology. And after that? Nothing.

This predicament, for me, flawlessly illustrates the very nature of the UW Alert system. The intention of these alerts is a noble one, but most of the time, it falls flat: We stare blankly at the message, eventually process the information, note the “prevention tips” at the bottom, and then realize that we ultimately have no control over the fact that an armed robber may or may not jump out from behind us at any given second and demand that we hand over our laptop and money. Also, who gave these criminals the idea that we starving college students have money to be robbed of?

Sunday’s robbery added confirmation to this theory of mine. The victims had adhered to all of the listed prevention tips: they were in a group, they had removed themselves from potentially dangerous situations (or so they thought), they were aware of their environment (they were on campus after all), and, well, “avoiding confrontation” — this appeared to be beyond their control.

So, what now? Great, we understand the whole “avoiding potentially dangerous situations” thing — but what happens when we’re already stuck in a dangerous situation? I find the overly simplified prevention tips to be not only demeaning and patronizing — suggesting that, as students, we seek out these dangerous situations and inflict harm upon ourselves — but also irrelevant. Most of us want to know how to act in dangerous situations, not how to avoid them.

Sometimes, I find the alerts mildly helpful. Knowing which direction the criminals are headed on indicated streets has, more than once, helped me avoid danger. But in the case of Sunday’s text message, I was left in a confused state, wondering if I should evacuate or simply stay put. There were no street names given.

Some students had passed rumors that the robber had entered the building, while others were pretty adamant that the robber was blocks away. This confusion drove most to take no action at all. One student continued playing his piece on the piano, and a huddle of girls continued their giggle session in the corner of the lobby. The only choice any of us really had was to twiddle our thumbs and wait for the issue to take care of itself.

According to Appendix B of the Crisis and Mass Communications Tools of the UW Crisis Communication Plan, the alert system is “used to disseminate official information during emergencies or crisis situations that may disrupt the normal operation of the UW or threaten the health or safety of members of the UW community.”

Yes, it’s disseminated. But because the service is offered through SMS and Twitter, the message that is being disseminated is also being condensed to 140 characters. Is this enough room to get the message across?

There are a lot of things that can be adequately communicated in 140 characters. Some manage to properly communicate the depths of their deep, black hearts over Twitter every day. But, as far as I can tell, local crime and safety usually require much more in-depth reporting, with a lot more words.

I mean, I’d like to have enough notice and information to prepare one of those poetic deaths, like Beethoven, who muttered, “Friends, applaud ­— the comedy is over,” or Vincent van Gogh, Virgina Woolf or even Elliott Smith.

Because, shoot, dying with my Situating Inquiry textbook in one hand and a cup of ramen in the other would be so pathetic.

Reach columnist Colin Gorenstein at opinion@dailyuw.com.