My selected area keeps unselecting itself.

I’m new to Audacity, and I’ve been trying to learn through SwarSaptaka’s tutorials on Youtube, but I’ve hit an issue I can’t figure out. When I select an area of my audio file by clicking and dragging above the timeline, it starts playing that area the moment I release the mouse-key, and then it deselects the moment it finishes playing. I can’t adjust or fine tune my selected area or even do any editing if it keeps deselecting, so how do I keep it selected?

I also noticed that if I hit pause while it’s playing the selected area, the display shows both the pause and play buttons depressed, I’m not sure if that’s significant, I just found it odd.
aud_selection.JPG

There are hardly any YouTube tutorials that we recommend, because the vast majority are inaccurate and/or using obsolete versions of Audacity and/or give bad advice. The recommended sources for information are the manual and the Audacity wiki.

You’re clicking too high. To make an audio selection, click and drag on the actual audio track(s) (the blue wiggly waveform). See: Audacity Manual

Clicking on the Timeline provides the “Quick Play” feature: Audacity Manual