The Foreign Service Journal, June 2009

J U N E 2 0 0 9 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 53 hat are you doing right now? Do you hate Facebook but post comments on Facebook photos? Google people when hiring? Need to know what your acquaintances are think- ing this very instant? If you’ve had any of these impulses, then you are a social networker. As a member of the Foreign Service community, joining LinkedIn, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, YouTube, Hi5 or Bebo will keep you connected to the entire global village. At least where there is reliable electricity and access to the World Wide Web, social networking is here to stay. The most popular social networking sites, according to Wikipedia, are MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn in the United States; Nexopia in Canada; Bebo, Hi5, Face- book, MySpace and dol2day in Germany; Tagged, XING and Skyrock in Europe; Orkut, Facebook and Hi5 in South America and Central America; and Friendster, Orkut, Xi- aonei and Cyworld in Asia. I’m one of those people who dislike Facebook, yet I’m on the site a few times a week and use several other social networking sites every day. Explaining my childhood as a global nomad was always a bit like describing life on the other side of a looking glass. So in many ways growing up in the Foreign Service prepared me for a 2.0 world. For a global nomad, social networking is a virtual scrap- book. I like that I can keep in touch with many of the friends I left years ago. I can feel a sense of community without leaving my home. I can even reconnect with my in- ternational schools. Curious to learn more about the reach and role of social networking among global nomads generally, and the chil- dren of Foreign Service families and international school alumni in particular, I have conducted an informal survey, posting questions on the subject on listserves and on virtual “walls.” This article presents the highlights of my findings to date. An Irresistible Pull “Social networking has had a tremendous impact on my life as a global nomad. Finally a way to keep in touch with my friends all over the world — and in real time, too!” So responded an international school alumna to my inquiry. “I’m on MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and I keep in touch with friends from middle school, high school, college, grad school and every job I’ve ever worked, as well as with people I’ve met more recently online. I attended an international school, and the number of international schools I see linked on Facebook is astounding.” The fastest-growing demographic on Facebook consists of individuals age 35-54. Many in this group are being brought to social networking by their children. “Who knows when I first heard about Facebook? Probably through my children, who are much more electronically savvy than I am,” one adult “convert,” a former Foreign Service child, G ETTING F OUND : G LOBAL N OMADS 2.0 S OCIAL NETWORKING HAS A SPECIAL ROLE TO PLAY IN CONNECTING T HIRD C ULTURE K IDS . B Y M IKKELA T HOMPSON Mikkela Thompson, daughter of retired FSO Ward Thomp- son, is a global nomad, portrait painter and writer, and a for- mer business manager of the Journal . W S CHOOLS S UPPLEMENT