The aim of this article is to present the characteristics of the phenomenon of reducing online use and the results of a preliminary, exploratory qualitative study conducted with a group of young people. The aim of the qualitative research was to diagnose the experiences and readiness of young people to undertake activities related to reducing Internet use and to identify factors supporting and hindering the process of reducing online activity. The survey was conducted in October 2024 among students of the Warsaw School of Economics. The method used was a critical analysis of the literature on the subject and a group interview, the data from which were analysed with the qualitative data analysis software MaxQda. The findings indicate the existence of a paradox of digital self-regulation. On the one hand, respondents recognize and perfectly describe the negative consequences of their excessive online presence, declaring the need to limit its use. They are also familiar with the various tools supporting the reduction of Internet use. On the other hand, however, they do not take real action towards digital self-regulation. This means that young people remain “suspended” between a growing self-awareness of their own digital habits and the difficulty of taking real action to reduce their attachment to the web. This internal conflict means that, although they have the knowledge and tools to self-regulate, actually changing their behaviour remains only declarative.

Access to Internet resources is a key prerequisite for taking advantage of the opportunities offered by the global web. It is also important to have the skills as well as a positive attitude to really benefit from their use. This represents an advantage in the phenomenon of digital inclusion, in which the older generations are systematically "catching up" with the younger ones. At the same time, however, a completely different trend is observed, consisting of limiting Internet use for reasons of security, protection of one's own health or the desire to build social relations in a traditional, nondigital way. The aim of this article is to compare the state of occurrence of both these phenomena in two age groups belonging to generations BB (baby boomers, 65–74 years old) and Z (16–29 years old), using the example of one of the most expansive network solutions – social media (SM). A statistical descriptive method and individual semi-structured interviews were used. The results show that although the differences in access to network services are steadily decreasing, they remain consistently high for SM. Z and BB use SM differently and in different ways – for generation Z they are a source of interesting content and a medium of communication, for BB – a source of information. Conclusions: the technological environment continues to differentiate between generations in terms of access, while the reasons for limiting the use of SM are two and they are common – time and usefulness of information. The research has the character of the first, preliminary research diagnosing the occurrence of the new phenomenon of disconnection of social media in Poland.