[rikschennink]

This.

They do this with Threads as well. If you’re not on there long enough, they’ll pretend there are notifications waiting for you, but it’s just “Posts that might be of interest to you”. They’ll even show this fake data on Instagram to get you to open Threads.

[thunfischtoast]

Modern Reddit does this as well. All kinds of useless notifications like "Your comment go 10 upvotes, congratulations!". Its not as bad on the old.reddit.com version

[beAbU]

I've managed to wean myself off reddit almost completely. When I use it, I use the 'old.reddit.com' ui. When they eventually get rid of that, I reckon I'll stop using reddit completely.

[Eddy_Viscosity2]

I browse the main page and one or two subreddits without an account and this helps for me. No account means no way to comment or interact and this greatly reduces time spent on the site. I just check for anything interesting, and then leave.