I created a simple app that has nothing except an EditText element. When I run the app, I type text into the element and then press Ctrl-F11 to change the emulator's orientation. I've added logging information to make sure that the activity gets destroyed and re-created when I change orientation. I haven't added any code to save the text in the EditText element and yet, after the change of orientation, the text that I typed stays in the EditText element. What mechanism in Android is saving and then restoring the element's text (is it savedInstanceState) and how can I see for myself the details of this saving operation?