Authors first problem is "Using MS Windows". Its now solidly an advert and spam vehicle for other Microsoft shit nobody wants (like the 63 different things named Copilot). Seriously, use Linux. It is better in almost every way, other than extreme rootkit based games.

Next, use Firefox or Iceweasel with Ublock Origin and a useragent changer. Disable the spammy shit, but there's less of it.

For phones, run Graphene. Hands down.

Focus on Fediverse applications. Twitter -> Mastodon. Instagram -> Pixelfed. Reddit -> Lemmy. YouTube -> Peertube. Various chat -> Matrix (but its not good). Various search engines -> SearXNG.

And old stuff still exists. IRC is still a thing. Gopher still exists.

You can also run your discord chats, Facebook, Instagram, etm. Just run them through a web browser, and never let them see any apps.

Its easy to be all defeatist and shouty-at-clouds, and 'back in the old days'. They'll never come again. Instead, its all our jobs to MAKE the current place friendly to us and ours.