Let's Stop Calling Them Smartphones

This might surprise some of you, but I wasn't exactly an early adopter of the mobile phone. In fact, I held off getting my first cell phone until 2003, a time when most of my friends had long ago joined the cellular revolution. The device I initially acquired was bare-bones, more a symbol of a begrudging capitulation to societal pressure than an enthusiastic embrace of emerging tech. Even when I did have the phone, I used it sparingly, terrified of exorbitant bills for a service I couldn't quite fathom why I needed.

Sure, it was useful “in case of an emergency”, but I had lived my whole life up until that point without a cell phone, so I couldn’t understand why I needed one. The only purpose it served was as a telephone; you certainly wouldn’t want to waste time texting.

For those who might not remember, early texting was a Herculean task of pressing a number multiple times to select a single letter. Then, you'd move on to the next letter, located on a different number. It was a laborio…