00:00Your phone screen is lying to you.
00:02You are never actually touching the pixels.
00:06The first touchscreen was invented way back in 1965 by a British engineer named E.A. Johnson,
00:12but it could only handle one single touch at a time.
00:16What you use today is capacitive.
00:19Under the glass, there is a transparent conductive coating holding an electrical charge.
00:24Your body is conductive, so when you touch it, you steal a tiny bit of that charge.
00:30The controller scans that change up to 240 times per second.
00:35That is why it feels instant.
00:38That is also why water confuses your screen, and why regular gloves block it.
00:43No conductivity, no touch.
00:46Before that, screens were resistive.
00:49Two flexible layers had to be physically pressed together,
00:52so you had to push hard, and you could never pinch to zoom.
00:56Multitouch did not exist until around 2005,
01:00and that invention is literally what made the modern smartphone possible.
01:04So, you are not pushing a button.
01:06You are becoming part of the circuit.
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