You are correct that the cases you cite, despite the claims otherwise, are not merely anthropomorphism. There's something else there, other kinds of figure of speech: in the language of rhetoric, these are transpositional rhetorical operations.
Synecdoche is using a part of a thing to refer to a thing; such as referring to a singer by speaking only of his voice.
Metonymy is speaking of a thing by referring to a related thing; such as speaking of the function, rather than the designer of the function.
Figures of speech are perfectly valid in informal speech, but beware of using them in more formal writing, where you should aim to be more literal. At least until your papers are being graded by someone who doesn't care so much about it, at least!