I have an iterative unfriending algorithm, because doing big clean ups is a mental task. Whenever Facebook notifies me that somebody has a birthday, if I don't feel like telling them happy birthday, I'll unfriend them instead.
A variation on this is to disable your account the day before your birthday, then re-enable it a day after. Then see who manages to still tell you happy birthday without the reminder from Facebook.
The problem is not spending
your time getting updates from Albert J. Random. The problem is getting bombarded by videos and other social-media-tailored content Albert (or any of the other people you've spent 5 minutes with in your life) didn't create but just happened to like or share.
The only thing that interests me on Facebook is what my "friends" have originated. My interest and time spent have declined in direct correlation with the amount of said content.
I always thought it was weird when someone sent me a friend request after meeting me one time. I made it my policy to ignore these requests and just let them sit. Then if I ended up meeting the person 2 or 3 more times and it seemed like we were connecting I'd hit "accept". Sometimes this would happen months later and the person would be surprised. They'd have forgotten they even sent the request.
Eventually I realized I wasn't getting a lot of value from facebook and left entirely.
My solution was to stop using Facebook cold turkey and request that my friends contact me another way. My real friends did, the rest didn't bother. I spend more time interacting with people I care about and less time "interacting" with "friends".
Deleting my fb account has been a positive experience. Real friends stay in touch, and the stressful negative/argumentative comment threads and posts are gone.
Admittedly I still use instagram. Their model works well to let me keep in touch loosely, without highlighting every like/repost/comment of the people who I follow.
I'll counter: There have been quite a few instances of FB friends like this in my life. I rarely deny a friend request or go on deleting sprees. If I meet someone doing interesting things, I'll be the requestor even. What happens occasionally is I find out someone I spoke with in person for only a few minutes, reveals over weeks, months, or even years, has very similar interests, humor style, etc. Comments on each other's post increase in frequency, until the fake friend becomes a real one after reaching out via a message that doesn't really come off as odd at all at this point. Who I do find myself unfriending is those I dated briefly that inevitably get married and have kids. Good for them, but time to disconnect. As I grow older, I realize more friends are a function of convenience. Your "real friends" will go on to do things in their life that distance them from you, and seem less like real friends, and your "fake friends" will become real friends when it seems logical. This ebb and flow may seem ugly to some, that would prefer to view all their friends as genuine stakeholders in their life with unwavering caring, and some of that does happen, but there is beauty in friendships being temporal as well.
The friendship with Albert is a shallow one that the main character is not interested in. The "friends" you are referring to are people you admire but do not know well. I definitely have some of those friends, some who are a source of inspiration for me. With these people, it's easier to enhance the friendship over social media than in person. For example, people who are into painting or photography upload their work online. Viewing, liking, and discussing their art would teach me more about them than talking in person.
I like your idea of "real friends" VS temporal friends. One problem with only having "real friends" is that people get hung up on them, and if circumstances separate them they'd have a harder time acclimating with the change.
This is worse on LinkedIn. Every recruiter wants to connect with you blindly before they'll share details about some mysterious job they have in their pocket, just waiting for you.
If you keep LI to only people you've actually spent more than 4 weeks working with, it becomes a lot more sane.