not true – I keep my cell phone “voice command” off - it appears to not listen as I don’t get targeted ads, also I disable targeted ads with Microsoft & Google in my account settings with both (so you might try that as well) -- it should be “opt-in” instead of “opt-out” but with their business models I see why they made it “opt-out”, and most people don’t bother to look at their settings after setting up their account.
use a different browser for search vs social — generally, I use Firefox for web stuff like search, but never [hardly ever] log into social - for social, I use Chrome ;)
if you use any other Google services (G-mail, youtube, or even Google Chrome browser, etc) don’t use search ;-) use DuckDuckGo instead (even better when in private/incognito/inPrivate mode)
turning off the “always listening” feature just means you have to press a button somewhere to activate voice command ;-)