It's possible to cull all of your 'Facebook friends' and only keep those faraway friends, and use Facebook as a sort of IRC server with pictures. I have a few friends who've done that.
Well, i installed an IRC (well, mattermost actually,a glorified IRC) where my friends and i can discuss and keep everyone updated on latest news on tech and games.
Honestly it's better than facebook (we can send each other snippet of code) and no one have to change the default setting to receive mails only when something interesting happen.