How can these differences be explained? Is it a matter of cultural factors operating in specific countries such as peer norms, parenting styles, familiarity with the internet, practices of regulation or other variables? Or, is it a matter of the design and management of the particular SNS that predominates in that country? In The Netherlands, for instance, Hyves is the main SNS but, also, Dutch peer culture (or parenting) may encourage young children to join in social networking. In this report, we point to country and/or SNS factors where appropriate, but we do not develop a deeper interpretation of these possible country differences, a task that awaits our future EU Kids Online.
