And, to turn off that mysterious social folder, you just disable the tab (I think it would be easiest to do this on desktop, then it would automatically stop it on your phone)
support.google.com/mail/answer/3055016?hl=en
I use gmail at work, And find both these settings useful as it makes my inbox far more efficient, so rather than clicking through every new email of a conversation I just see the top level. However I can totally see that if you're not receiving several hundred emails a day that all need to be prioritised it can seem like a disruption to a simple click and read