Now I actually use it to keep in touch with people I care about, rather than just pretend that's what I'm doing.
I missed out on some things during my three years with Facebook off, and although I learned so much from having done it, I wouldn't do it again.
Unless your friends are on facebook. If that's the case then there's some second-hand facebooking/instagramming that you have to be aware of.
Mine are set in such a way that you can't add me as a friend if you're not already friends with a friend of mine. If we then are friends, you can't post anything to my wall nor can you tag me in any way without my consent. Granted, the picture will still be there (and possibly visible by anyone if it was posted by one such clueless individual), but then again deleting your Facebook account won't magically erase all the pictures you appear in either.
The actual problem is that any idiot has a smartphone and a Facebook or Instagram account. And they take pictures. And post them.
There doesn't need to be any aunt following your friends. A cousin is more than enough. And there are countries where related families tend to be scattered over a relatively small area, so having friends in common between you and your relatives is but a rare occurrence.
I unfollow or block assholes, but there is a whole world of folks I keep up with ranging from distant relatives to musicians I played a one off gig with.
These folks are about as good friends as the people at local businesses I know well enough to say "hi, how's your daughter" or whatever.
I don't have to be radically intimate with people in order to count them among my friends. It's a scale, and it comes and goes based on how we interact. But it's not pretense.
(I should note that the Spotify staff were amazingly helpful and actually migrated me over to an email-login account when asked.)