what is a cell phone?

Before we answer the question at hand, let me digress (if one can do so with nothing to digress from). I prefer cellphone as one word. Why? Because the typical evolution in American English is to go from two words to a compound word with a hyphen and then to one solid word combining the original two words. Why not skip all that and go straight to one word? After all, we don't say tele-phone anymore. But most style guides go for cell phone as two words, so I will obey, which is not my nature. Here's a rather fascinating and in-depth look at the issue, from an Australian writing 10 years ago. And I won't digress from a digression to ponder smart phone vs. smartphone.

What is a cell phone? 

Wikipedia says: "A mobile phone, known as a cell phone in North America, is a portable telephone that can make and receive calls over a radio frequency link while the user is moving within a telephone service area. The radio frequency link establishes a connection to the switching systems of a mobile phone operator, which provides access to the public switched telephone network (PSTN). Modern mobile telephone services use a cellular network architecture, and, therefore, mobile telephones are called cellular telephones or cell phones, in North America."

Well now! I couldn't have said it better myself. Who knew? Not me. Who knew that this is what that ubiquitous ever-present thing is and how it works, if you understand all that technical stuff.  

But that doesn't get to the existential nature of the thing. I mean, how would Soren Kierkegaard or Martin Heidegger answer the standing question? And would they possess one? 

I'm going to allow for a lot of wiggle, or wriggle, room and say that defining a cell phone depends on circumstances and intent. I won't foolishly say, "It's all relative." I had a philosophy professor at Le Moyne College, the Rev. John J. McNeill, S.J., who told our class about a debate on situation ethics he participated in around 1970. When his opponent said, "It's all relative" or "Everything is relative," McNeill retorted, "You can't make a statement like that. It contains an absolute. It subverts your argument." I always thought that was quick and clever. 

Where were we?

Permit me the Socratic method. Isn't that when the philosopher (which I am not) asks a series of leading questions so that the student formulates a reasoned response?

Is a cell phone a communication device? Obviously. They say that it is. But --hold on -- I submit it is equally, if not more so, a miscommunication device, especially when SMS, or texting, is employed. So we cannot with certainty claim that a cell phone is a communication device. Even if one texts another saying "bring some milk home," the sender assumes the receiver received the message, on time, in English, and without sarcasm, doubt, irony, etc. Throw an emoji in there and land mines may be planted.

Is a cell phone a weapon? You would think so, the way the "device" is brandished. Especially on business calls, isn't the object used as a weapon in the arsenal of persuasive tools? Just watch someone's posture, mannerisms, volume, and word choices.

Is a cell phone a walkie-talkie? It can be, especially if someone is in the attic talking to someone in the basement, if there's service coverage.

Is a cell phone a tether? Is it not a cable, a rope, a binding to the mother ship, your network, your friends, even your enemies, your spouses (plural in my case), your lovers, your ex-lovers, your would-be lovers, and your would-be ex-ex-lovers or would-be ex-ex-spouses? Ask yourself this: what happens if you sever that tether? Can you do it? What happens when baby's pacifier pops out of the mouth and rolls onto the pavement and slips down a storm drain? Tantrum, right? And what does the unshackled slave do without the familiar grip of tyranny?

What is a cell phone?

Tell me.

Testify.