Interface with touch screen using arduino
I've actually made some progress with this method I have found the problem to be the parasitic, or static capacitance of whatever I stick to the screen. It is enough to bring the base level reference at that sensor up too high to consider anything else a touch.

If I stick the foil with a 5 inch strand of hair-width wire, and pinch the end of the wire, it will work for about 30 seconds then stop working. If I leave it for 10 minutes it still won't work, nor will touching the foil itself. If I clip the strand of wire to maybe 3 inches, and pinch the end, it will start working after 30 seconds. Leaving it again for 10 minutes, it still works.

So really the question is, if I have a piece of foil on the screen with a 2 inch strand of wire, how do I electrically connect something to that for a moment, without adding any parasitic capacitance to it in the mean time. A transistor by itself was ok, pinching the wire would still get a touch but as soon as I solder something to the emitter of the transistor the foil would stop working after 30 seconds. A relay also has too much metal inside the terminal, causing the same problem after 30 seconds.
I am pretty sure I have the problem pinned down, as with both of these situations, if I clip what I have soldered off, after 30 seconds or so the foil begins working again if I pinch the little strand.

EDIT
So the problem was a thick tempered glass screen protector I had on the phone. I removed that and the amount of material able to be connected to the foil increased substantially. It works perfectly with a relay for hours. I tried with a transistor it works for a while but eventually becomes 'numb' to it so I guess the minuscule current across the 'off' transistor is enough to cause the foils capacitance to increase.

Thanks for the comments