The present invention provides a system and method for managing in a wireless communication device the receipt of a paging signal from a wide area wireless network. The method includes detecting by the wireless communication device whether the user of the wireless communication device is available for receiving an alert regarding incoming information via the wireless communication device. When the device determines that the user is not available for receiving the alert, one or more intervals during which a paging signal is expected as being possible are ignored by the wireless communication device, such that any paging signal for the wireless communication device that is present during the one or more intervals that are being ignored by the wireless communication device are not received by the wireless communication device.