Question

I know that one can overwrite the Back Button functionality in Android, but I was wondering if there was a method or anything I could call that would functionally do the same thing as pressing the hardware button.

Answer 1

You can send the back button press to the system like this

this.dispatchKeyEvent(new KeyEvent(KeyEvent.ACTION_DOWN, KeyEvent.KEYCODE_BACK)); 

Or you can override the back button press and call

finish();

on your Activity. That basically does the same thing as the generic back button.