“Dropping in and out’: Social media and internet-based communication amongst Naval families during separation

The ‘Impact of Service Life on the Military Child: The Overlooked Casualties of Conflict Update and Review Report’ identified a gap in our understanding related to how significant leaps in technology over the past few decades have impacted on parent-child communication during military separation. Based on this, the NCC commissioned the Veterans and Families Institute (VFI) to undertake some follow on research to explore the impact of social media and internet based communication on parent-child communication in Naval families. Deployment is an expected and integral part of military life in the UK Armed Forces, meaning military children can be separated from their serving parent for months at a time. Furthermore, separation of families during the week, or ‘weekending’, has become more common as Ministry of Defence (MOD) policies encourage military families to own their own home. Naval families in the UK experience both the longest deployments and the highest rates of ‘weekending’ compared to the Army and Royal Air Force. As such, Naval children often have to maintain their relationship with their serving parent remotely, pulling on range of different communication avenues, including social media.