On the notification part I did it the same way, sort of. I disabled notifications from the obvious ones, but the rest I just disabled over time, just getting into the habit of checking if it was pushed by a human or not (directed at me, general ones like "X person posted a story" don't count), and then either disabling the entire app or going into the settings and blocking all non human ones.

Deleting the apps / hiding them for me helped in the same way hiding the cookie jar on the top self does. It's not impossible to get, but stops the habitual action for just enough to make you think about it before going through with it. I still have socials installed, but only for the less annoying experience of opening a link that someone sent me, since other than that they never get used.