Many applications such as concert hall, public events, telephones, radio, sound recording and broadcasting on television uses microphones. Most of our phones and laptops has built-in microphones that are very useful when talking to someone such as Skyping, FaceTiming and phone call, it is also great for recording sounds as well as filming a video where sound is needed. There’s also external microphones for your electronic devices if you want better recording quality. The built-in microphones are usually at the bottom but also front and back, varies on the brand and model. On laptops microphones are small dots that are usually on the sides. There are a few ways to figure out if your mic is working on your phone. Try using a voice recorder app by recording your voice and then play the audio sound. If you can hear your voice clearly without any disturbance then your mic is working. A last try is to turn off the phone and then turn it on again and se if it works. Since phones are small devices and the mic has many purposes, if it doesn’t work it stops many features on your phone such as phone calls and certain apps.
To see if your laptops internal microphone is working go to system preference (if it’s an apple product), sound and then you can both test the sound and adjust. With other laptops you should be able to do something similar. You can also find a site to test your microphone.