OREANDA-NEWS. The Chinese company ByteDance, which owns the social network TikTok, has joined the country's authorities' campaign to limit the influence of electronic technologies on the younger generation. Children and adolescents under the age of 14 have been restricted from using the local TikTok counterpart, the Douyin app. This was reported by RIA Novosti.

To do this, all registered users whose age is less than 14 years old based on the specified date of birth were transferred to a special youth regime. In addition to the general time limit, it cannot use the service from 10 pm to 6 am.

Earlier this year, the Chinese authorities announced a 3-hour weekly limit on minors' use of video games effective September 1. In order to protect their mental and physical health, they can now play for only one hour on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

Meanwhile, in the US, Congress will investigate Facebook again - this time due to their own research on the dangers of Instagram that the company has tried to hide.

The attention of Senate representatives was attracted by the publication of The Wall Street Journal, whose editors got their hands on these very studies on the impact of Instagram on the mental health of adolescents. From these documents, it appears that Facebook has been researching the issue for the past three years. Tens of thousands of users participated in the polls, and some of the results showed alarming trends.

So, among adolescents with suicidal thoughts, from 6% to 13% linked the desire to commit suicide to the influence of Instagram. And for every third teenage girl, the application aggravates the problems with the perception of her body. The study also suggests that imposing a glamorous lifestyle can end up causing an eating disorder such as anorexia or bulimia.

According to representatives of the US Senate, Facebook is unable to take responsibility, and the company clearly prefers profit over the health and lives of children and adolescents.