The internet is mostly known for being a nightmare for your privacy, but I also think there is another side to that coin. I mean, it is insanely easy (and common) these days to do all your internet communication with messengers, that have pretty much unbreakable encryption (Signal). That was not possible for the average person before computers and the internet. The government could easily read all you private letters.
Also, all our web traffic is fully encrypted with https (although that is more of a security than a privacy thing) and most modern phones automatically do full disk encryption for your files. It is also trivialilly easy to use a proper end to end encrypted cloud storage (proton, tuta etc.) or even use unsafe cloud storage like Google Drive as long as you encrypt your files locally before uploading.
I know, the internet is still a net negative for most peoples privacy, but it is pretty cool how far we’ve come with encryption.
Leave your damn phone at home and use a vpn.
If I didn’t live such a boring life, I probably would on occasion leave my phone at home. That said, I probably only leave my house a couple of times per week, so it’s a moot point.
Also, VPN is only one component of online privacy. I have looked at the effort required to achieve complete opsec and it’s not worth the effort. And there is no point in half-assing it.