In 10 years of reading hacker news I never thought to press the [-] until this moment.
I thought you had to click the [-]. How do I press the [-]?
I cannot click anything on my phone.
But as another comment mentioned, you can click root | parent | prev | next to get navigated through the thread. Personally, I prefer the collapse, though, as having the top of my screen move without my direct control is a bit jarring, but there's more functionality from these buttons.