The phrase "a mere device to" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to indicate that something is simply a tool or means to achieve a particular end, often implying that it lacks substance or significance beyond that function.
Example: "The new policy is seen by many as a mere device to placate the public rather than a genuine effort to address the issues."
Alternatives: "just a tool to" or "simply a means to".
"Samsung has filled the status-object void with a phone that is genuinely flashy, that feels like a little chunk of magic in your hand, rather than a mere device, and that imputes to its user a certain amount of mystique," the Daily Intelligencer's Kevin Roose wrote of the S4 in June.
If you believe that competitive advantage is wrapped up in human capital, then the change in America's people will surely affect its future far more than a mere device such as the Internet.On the other hand, it is possible to exaggerate just how quickly the melting pot is cooking this stew.
Mr. Redmayne, who last month won the Olivier Award (the British version of the Tony) for his performance, keeps his character from ever seeming like a mere device.
I loved the heated, overflowing talk in "Crash," most of which is wonderfully written, and I wasn't bothered by the movie's pileup of coincidences: "Crash" was a Los Angeles fable about twisted-metal automotive connection in a disconnected place — coincidence was not a mere device but what the movie was about.
Defined by his creator as "a mere device . . . a whispering 'daemon,' " Marlow is more specifically a vehicle for exploring the perspectival nature of human affairs — the idea that, for example, the Indian Ocean has no stable essence or identity beyond the excitement it inspires in one excitable twenty-year-old sailor.
Although the Quartet's report briefly mentions the importance of the Arab Peace Initiative (API), in my view, the API should not be considered as a mere device for directing the negotiating process, but rather as the central framework for achieving a comprehensive peace.
The biographical back stories — Mary's father is serving a life sentence for murdering her mother; Stanley, the night editor, turns out to be concealing his African-American background — sometimes feel tacked on, mere devices to give the characters some depth.
They are mere device, there to keep us turning the pages while slowly, hesitantly, human beings crawl out from behind the hateful carapaces that the Eight present to the world.
