By default, when the screen is rotated your Activity is killed and restarted. See the sample code below to save the state
Source: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5123407/losing-data-when-rotate-screen
//Use onSaveInstanceState(Bundle) and onRestoreInstanceState@Overridepublic void onSaveInstanceState(Bundle savedInstanceState) { // Save UI state changes to the savedInstanceState. // This bundle will be passed to onCreate if the process is // killed and restarted. savedInstanceState.putBoolean("MyBoolean", true); savedInstanceState.putDouble("myDouble", 1.9); savedInstanceState.putInt("MyInt", 1); savedInstanceState.putString("MyString", "Welcome back to Android"); // etc. super.onSaveInstanceState(savedInstanceState); } //onRestoreInstanceState @Override public void onRestoreInstanceState(Bundle savedInstanceState) { super.onRestoreInstanceState(savedInstanceState); // Restore UI state from the savedInstanceState. // This bundle has also been passed to onCreate. boolean myBoolean = savedInstanceState.getBoolean("MyBoolean"); double myDouble = savedInstanceState.getDouble("myDouble"); int myInt = savedInstanceState.getInt("MyInt"); String myString = savedInstanceState.getString("MyString"); }