Nomenclature
"Hello, Mister Sheehan?"
No phone call beginning with those words is going to be good. I really should just hang up immediately. But I was feeling a little ill-tempered, and unsolicited sales calls provide such a wonderful outlet for the black humours.
"Yes," I answered sweetly. "How may I help you?"
"Mister Sheehan, I'm calling from RedactedCorp to tell you about an exciting new telephone service…"
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm afraid I don't have a telephone."
A long silence ensued. The solicitor finally wished me a nice day, and terminated the call.
Was I lying? Well, yeah, but I could make a case for my assertion. We disconnected our landline phones years ago. The house still has a nest of green boxes on the side -- long, long ago, we had several lines for our BBS as well as our own use. We even had ISDN.
But nowadays, we use iPhones. It wouldn't be correct to call them cell phones, though. It communicates through more than just cell towers - in fact, it spends most of its time on WiFi.
And it's not really accurate to call it a phone. We have the lowest possible number of minutes on our plan, and we still have plenty left over. I don't use a phone very much. I do use email and SMS and a number of network applications all the time.
"Mobile computer" isn't really very good - it's too easy to confuse with a laptop or tablet.
One writer thought it should be called a tracker. As long as it is on, it's possible to find me within ten or twenty yards. And it reports things back to others through apps like Facebook. If you want to hide, the first thing you need to do is turn your phone off. IF you really want to hide, turn it off and drop it down a sewer.
I rather like the idea of calling it a Daemon, after Philip Pullman's creation in the His Dark Materials trilogy. It's always with me. I would feel lost without it. It is an auxilliary brain, almost a part of my consciousness. See the Wiki page for Nomophobia
And it would really annoy the cluelessly religious, who would immediately assume that I'm in league with the devil.
Daemons. Think it'll catch on?
No phone call beginning with those words is going to be good. I really should just hang up immediately. But I was feeling a little ill-tempered, and unsolicited sales calls provide such a wonderful outlet for the black humours.
"Yes," I answered sweetly. "How may I help you?"
"Mister Sheehan, I'm calling from RedactedCorp to tell you about an exciting new telephone service…"
"I'm sorry," I said. "I'm afraid I don't have a telephone."
A long silence ensued. The solicitor finally wished me a nice day, and terminated the call.
Was I lying? Well, yeah, but I could make a case for my assertion. We disconnected our landline phones years ago. The house still has a nest of green boxes on the side -- long, long ago, we had several lines for our BBS as well as our own use. We even had ISDN.
But nowadays, we use iPhones. It wouldn't be correct to call them cell phones, though. It communicates through more than just cell towers - in fact, it spends most of its time on WiFi.
And it's not really accurate to call it a phone. We have the lowest possible number of minutes on our plan, and we still have plenty left over. I don't use a phone very much. I do use email and SMS and a number of network applications all the time.
"Mobile computer" isn't really very good - it's too easy to confuse with a laptop or tablet.
One writer thought it should be called a tracker. As long as it is on, it's possible to find me within ten or twenty yards. And it reports things back to others through apps like Facebook. If you want to hide, the first thing you need to do is turn your phone off. IF you really want to hide, turn it off and drop it down a sewer.
I rather like the idea of calling it a Daemon, after Philip Pullman's creation in the His Dark Materials trilogy. It's always with me. I would feel lost without it. It is an auxilliary brain, almost a part of my consciousness. See the Wiki page for Nomophobia
And it would really annoy the cluelessly religious, who would immediately assume that I'm in league with the devil.
Daemons. Think it'll catch on?