There are three problems here: isolation, lost time, and inconvenience. Tackle them one by one.
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Isolation: Is downloading social media really going to cure this? I definitely agree, going off social media can be isolating, but it should be used as an opportunity to build stronger friendship, rather than sinking into no friendships. Whether you have friends or are just pissed about not understanding the Tik-Tok trend your friends are talking about, I don’t know, so can’t really comment further. In any case, I doubt returning to social media will help you. If it does, then you could go back and stay private by using pseudonym, a separate phone/graphene profile, and/or using it only to message friends. You don’t need to become an influencer.
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Lost time: Maybe you did waste you time, but you won’t get that back. You can stop giving privacy your time by getting off this site and just using whatever works for you without thinking about it.
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Convenience: Again, you didn’t share enough information on what is inconvenient. Sacrifice privacy for particular things if its inconvenient. Otherwise, why not keep using the tools you learned. If you throw them all out the window for the sake of it, then I tjhink you did waste your time. If you keep some things, then you didn’t waste your time.
I’ll end by quoting myself.
Final thought: I do not think it is necessarily overwhelming to go from no digital privacy to more private than the 99% of people. Just swap Google for Tor/Brave, Gmail for Proton, buy a VPN, Signal whenever possible and quit social media. Don’t overthink it like us. If you want to understand the weaknesses of whatever approach you choose, to be more comprehensive, and to maximize privacy without it becoming unfeasible, then yes it is overwhelming.