Facebook said on Monday that it had paused development of an “Instagram Kids” service that would be tailored for children 13 years old or younger amid questions about the app’s effect on young people’s mental health.

The announcement comes ahead of a congressional hearing this week about internal research conducted by Facebook, and reported in The Wall Street Journal, that showed the harmful mental health effects Instagram was having on teenage girls.

Facebook said it still wanted to build an Instagram product intended for children that will have a more “age appropriate experience”, but was postponing the plans.

“This will give us time to work with parents, experts, policymakers and regulators, to listen to their concerns, and to demonstrate the value and importance of this project for younger teens online today,” Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, wrote in a blog post.

Facebook has argued that young people are using Instagram anyway, so it would be better to develop a version more suitable for them with more parental controls.

New York Times News Service