China's seniors get more screen time

China's elderly population is increasingly hooked on social media including the short-video platform Douyin where the country is trying to restrict the amount of time children spend on them, tech media Wired reported.

There are 267 million people aged 60 or above in China, according to official statistics and elderly people may become a new target audience for Douyin. A study by Erasmus University Rotterdam suggests that Covid-19 was a watershed moment when seniors turned to social media as strict pandemic controls forced them to connect with others for companionship.

Meanwhile, cheaper smartphones and monthly fees made older people targets for China's biggest phone brands and made them more tech-savvy.

This came as the share of US adults who say they would support the US government banning TikTok, the international version of Douyin, declined from 50 percent in March to 38 percent now, according to a Pew Research Center survey.