A touchscreen is an electronic visual display

Electronic visual display

An electronic visual display is display technology which incorporates flat panel displays, performs as a video display, output device for presentation of images transmitted electronically, for visual reception, without producing a permanent record....

 that can detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area. The term generally refers to touching the display of the device with a finger

Finger

A finger is a limb of the human body and a type of digit, an organ of manipulation and sensation found in the hands of humans and other primates....

 or hand

Hand

A hand is a prehensile, multi-fingered extremity located at the end of an arm or forelimb of primates such as humans, chimpanzees, monkeys, and lemurs...

. Touchscreens can also sense other passive objects, such as a stylus

Stylus (computing)

In computing, a stylus is a small pen-shaped instrument that is used to input commands to a computer screen, mobile device or graphics tablet...

. Touchscreens are common in devices such as all-in-one computers, tablet computer

Tablet computer

A tablet computer, or simply tablet, is a complete mobile computer, larger than a mobile phone or personal digital assistant, integrated into a flat touch screen and primarily operated by touching the screen...

s, and smartphone

Smartphone

A smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone or camera...

s.

The touchscreen has two main attributes. First, it enables one to interact directly with what is displayed, rather than indirectly with a pointer controlled by a mouse

Mouse (computing)

In computing, a mouse is a pointing device that functions by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of an object held under one of the user's hands, with one or more buttons...

 or touchpad

Touchpad

A touchpad is a pointing device featuring a tactile sensor, a specialized surface that can translate the motion and position of a user's fingers to a relative position on screen. Touch pads are a common feature of laptop computers, and they are also used as a substitute for a mouse where desk...

.