Getting Comfortable With Your Phone or Computer

A phone or computer can feel like a wall of buttons, but almost everything you do comes down to a handful of simple actions. Once you know these, the rest is just practice. You do not need to memorize anything – you need to know what to try.

The first action is tapping or clicking. On a touchscreen phone, you tap a small picture (called an icon) once with your finger to open it. On a computer, you move the arrow (the cursor) with a mouse or trackpad and press the left button once to click. A small picture of a camera usually opens the camera; an envelope usually opens email. The pictures are hints about what each one does.

The second action is scrolling – moving the page up or down to see more. On a phone, you slide one finger up the screen to move down a page, like rolling a long scroll of paper. On a computer, you spin the little wheel on the mouse, or slide two fingers up and down the trackpad. If a page seems to end too soon, try scrolling – there is often more below.

The third action is typing. When you tap a box, like a search bar, a keyboard appears on a phone, or you use the one in front of you on a computer. Type slowly. If you make a mistake, the Backspace key – usually near the top right of the letters – erases the last thing you typed, one letter at a time.

The most important habit is this: you can almost never break anything by tapping the wrong thing. If you open something by accident, look for an X, an arrow pointing left, or a Back button to leave. Exploring is how you learn. Tap around, see what happens, and back out if it is not what you wanted.