Zompist Bboard Again

What do you think about the word "nomophobia" for the fear of being without access to a cell phone? I've seen some people complain that "nomophobia" should actually mean "fear of laws".

"No mobile phobia = nomophobia"

I'd just call it first world problems. :p Then again, I actively hate my cellphone, don't use it if I can avoid it, and virtually never take it with me unless I have reason to believe I'll need it because modern cellphones are the size of a trade paperback. :p And I'm in my upper 20s, not 80s.

Lack of cell phone access is a problem all over the world, nothing first-world about it. (It's landlines that tend to have that sort of skew.)

Agree with people who complain it should be "fear of laws", don't blame lay people for not knowing that relatively little-known Greek root, suspect a word what would actually mean "fear of not having a mobile phone" would be too bloody long.

Little known? The root in metronome, economy, astronomy, Deuteronomy, anomie, autonomy, taxonomy, gastronomy?

I'm pedantic enough to agree that the obvious meaning of nomophobia is "fear of laws", but also flexible enough to appreciate a multilingual pun. The coiners were obviously going for pseudo-Greek. But it's not quite obvious enough to make a really good pun. People don't actually say "no mo" to indicate a lack of connection, do they?

Can we do better? I'd suggest nobarophobia.

i think nomo- "law" is a different root than onom- "name" though. im not sure because wiktionary gives no etymology.

It is, but the root in "astronomy" etc. is -nomy. o is a connecting vowel.

akamchinjir wrote: ↑Sat Oct 27, 2018 10:51 am Lack of cell phone access is a problem all over the world, nothing first-world about it. (It's landlines that tend to have that sort of skew.)

Lack of landlines is a first world problem? I'm going to take a wild guess that not many Americans under the age of 10 have ever seen a landline; I haven't had a landline in my home for about 15 years. :p The point here isn't whether the Democratic Republic of Congo has cellphone access: the point here is that many Americans (and not just young Americans! I see people in their 60s/70s who panic without their cellphones) start hyperventilating at the thought of being separated from their phones for ten minutes.

About 15 years ago I certainly had this reaction with respect to the Internet. During a power outage I was deprived of the Internet for about 24 hours and I had a very difficult time coping with it. I can certainly relate to nomophobia, though I think I've developed better coping strategies now even though the situation is much less likely to happen to me today than it was 15 years ago when there was only one way to connect.

Since voice calling is just a small part of cellular phones' activity, and since even voice and text is now carried over a data connection, I think that nomophobia is the same phenomenon as the fear of being cut off from the Internet, which I'm not sure ever received a formal name.

Regarding the name, Im a purist so I would like to call it something other than nomophobia as well, but I cant think of any roots in Greek that are convenient but yet specific enough to narrow down the meaning, and I dont think that people would be willing to borrow a word like nappypuvophobia with the missing root provided by Poswa.

There are third world areas where cell phones are more common because all the wars make landlines impossible (like Somalia)

I've never heard of a mobile phone being called a "mo", so the name makes no sense to me - plus, of course, it already has an established meaning. Is 'nomophobia' really a word people encounter in real life? I've never hear it, certainly.

I'd suggest, with a slightly broader meaning, asyndetophobia, which if unless I'm being stupid again should mean a fear of the absence of connexion, which would seem to describe the chief fear of lacking a phone. [although of course in some cases it may just be a reflection of some other fear, such as the fear of some medical emergency that would require a phone to call for help]. Although I think it might also mean the fear of not having any ligaments? Context should probably suffice to distinguish, however.

All results for asyndeton are about the literary technique.

How about kinitophobia, from the modern Greek word for cell phone? (same root as kinetic)
Oh wait, kinetophobia already means fear of movement

mèþru wrote: ↑Sun Oct 28, 2018 8:15 am How about kinitophobia, from the modern Greek word for cell phone? (same root as kinetic)
Oh wait, kinetophobia already means fear of movement

yeah but you'd need to add an a- anyway, so it could still work. I like this one.

Cambridge Online dictionary has an entry for "nomophobia" for fear of lack of access to a cell phone. They say it comes from truncating "no mobile"

If you'd asked a few years back, "anokiaphobia" would have been an obvious contender...

mèþru wrote: ↑Sun Oct 28, 2018 8:13 am All results for asyndeton are about the literary technique.

... I didn't say 'asyndeton'. And I certainly didn't say that 'asyndetophobia' was a word people actually use. If you want a word the elements of which aren't already in use for other things, you'll have to avoid Greek (and Latin, and English) entirely.

I'm in the "fear of the law" camp and reject the "fear of no cellular access" definition on two grounds:

1.) Unless I've been living under a rock, we usually do not create new words by adding Greek suffixes to English roots. (Then again, we tend to stick them to Latin roots without much of a problem...)

2.) I side with Salmoneus and question the fear of not having cell phone access as a legitimate phobia because of its novelty. I'm not saying that the cell phone was a bad invention; I'm saying that civilization has gone so long without cell phones that I question that it, in and of itself, is really what's causing the fear—lack of being able to contact anyone is a better candidate to me. Thus, I like his suggestion most for an alternative word.

No, I've heard of people who are really scared by the lack of a cell phone itself more. It's pretty rare though.

Of course given it's November it's likely that some people (myself included) without context would take "nomophobia" to mean "fear of having inadequate facial hair".