My Phone Is Rarely A Phone

When my generation hears the word "phone" we tend to think of something that derived from the telephone. That is, an electronic device that is used to transmit audio conversations between two or more parties. Some from my generation may have extended the definition to include the functions of a smartphone but still tend to think of it as primarily an audio transmission device.

My son's generation will not think of an audio device. For example, when my son plays with something that he imagines is a phone, he uses it to do a variety of things. He uses it for audio transmission, but he also, in his imagination, uses it for playing games, watching videos, taking pictures, and more. He might as well be pretending that it is an iPod Touch. He certainly does not need to have a phone to provide all of the functions on the device that he is calling a phone.

It has been years since the primary function on my mobile device has been the phone. Before I had a smartphone, I used the cellphone I had primarily for its data connection. I would connect it to my laptop to use the internet while I was away from my home during a time when free wifi was still very sparse in the rural town which I lived. The "phone" has been reduced to an app that I do not even have easily accessible on my iPhone's home screen because there are far more frequently used apps that deserve that space. To me this device is many things; a calorie tracker, an exercise and fitness companion, a map, a jukebox, a web browser, a calendar, a still and video camera, a news reader, a notepad, a remote control, a grocery list, a social networking portal, a library of books, a video player, a handheld gaming device, an address book, a GPS navigation device, a discount store, a flashlight, an alarm clock, a calculator, a level, a compass, a city guide, a weather forecaster, a bar assistant, and yes a phone. At this point, it seems silly to call the device in my pocket by its least used function.

I realize that the majority of users of smartphones still use the "phone" function a bit more than I do, but it will continue to get sidelined to a lot of other functions. In the past I have tried calling my mobile device other things. I sometimes call it a "mobile device". Awhile back I read a Gizmodo article that pushed for replacing the word "phone" with the term "com". I liked that. It reminded me of the Star Trek Com Badge. It did not stick though. I also tried calling it a PDT. It was an acronym for Pocketable Data Transceiver in which I considered voice calls just another type of data. I still like that one, but I keep reverting back to phone either out of habit, or just because I want people to know what I am talking about.

I guess the question is, can we ever get to the point where we can all start calling the increasingly more capable devices in our pocket something more appropriate than a word that by definition refers to sound or voice, or do we just redefine the word phone to include basically any electronic function that can fit into a pocketable device thus obscuring a lot of meaning from the original word?