Recently, while exploring jacksgap.com, an Official website operated by Youtube celebrity twins, Jack and Finn Harries, I was recommended the video, Saroo Briely: Homeward Bound. This video was produced by Google Maps, and traced the story of Saroo Briely who was separated from his family but reconnected through Google Maps. This video reminded me of another video that I was suggest by the same twins back in the summer called The Impossible Family Portrait. This video, produced by Skype resembled the video created by Google Maps very much; it illustrated the story of Denis, a Ugandan refugee living apart from his family in America, being reconnected to his family through the use of Skype. Evidently, there is a clear resemblance between the two videos…The use of personal narratives in exhibiting the value of emerging technologies in enhancing the human life.

Throughout the development of civilizations, technologies have always been considered advantageous and beneficial. However in recent years with society’s growing reliance on technology for the functioning of society, advancements in technologies have at times been questioned. A question that arises is the concern with the disconnection with humanity with the increasing dependance on technology. Humans are being replaced by robots in the workforce, large network systems are operated mainly on computer systems, and moreover families are being disconnected due to the disruption of technology such as cellphones and the internet community. Skype and Google Maps are two fairly recent technological programs (both emerged within the past 10 years) have greatly changed the interaction people have with others. Although many people would claim that these are positive development of technology that will contribute to the betterment of society, there may be some people who would be skeptical of these artificial contributors to society.

Thus to prove existence of the connections and enhancement of human relations due to technology, the two applications use life stories of ‘real’ people as promotional material. By using autobiographies, the synthetic applications demonstrate how technology can be integrated into humanity, and thus increasing the sense of association to these programs. They explicitly illustrate the enhancement of the individuals’ lives in contrast to their lives prior to using the application in portraying how advantageous it is in maintaing the relationship with others. Reoccurring in the videos was the theme of “family”, “home”, and “reconnection”. These themes are treasured in Western societies and can be sentimental topics as evident through the comments posted by readers, often along the lines of “Beautiful”, “Inspiring”, and “Brings tears to my eyes”. These comments clearly show that the companies were effective in connecting the virtual programs with human emotion and humanity, successfully integrating technology with humanity. The two programs promote success stories that were made possible due to the collaboration of humans and technology and their co-existence with each other.

With further investigation, I found out that Skype and Google Maps both have entire playlists on Youtube devoted to autobiographies as examples of the use of these technologies in the real world. Their attempt in integrating technology with human activities and establishing their positive presence in the world with these personal narratives is clear as they market their way into humanity.