I think about this a lot; the inverse might be slightly true in terms of who we should be connecting to, or maybe it's about the frequency of new and diverse connections and how those introductions are done? Even before Facebook I think most people generally kept within their group of like-minded people. It has gotten worse now because we are very much divided physically by where we live, what jobs people hold, where kids go to school, etc.
I used to believe in the original Facebook mission -- connecting the world. I've worked remotely my entire life so I've had the opportunity to work with people all over the world from different cultures and backgrounds. It's given me a great perspective on humanity that I think a lot of people could benefit from, especially the ones that are in small towns (like I was) and don't venture out much beyond their borders in their life. But the internet allowed those connections to take place for me, not Facebook. We don't need Facebook to do any of these things, we just need to embrace the power of the internet.
Facebook brought together a lot of people from very different groups with very different opinions about the world and just slammed them together in an informal way, an awkward way. I have uncles that I find to be abhorrent and I had no interest in connecting to them before Facebook in any way, but Facebook thinks because we have genetic connection, that must mean we want to have a social connection, right? And they push those connections extremely hard.
I hate being "one of those people" but I deactivated my FB account early this month and it will be deleted in early February. I've definitely felt better without it, even though I know I'm missing some things. But if anything, it's encouraged me to be more proactive in reaching out to the people I actually want to keep up-to-date with, either via text message or real life meetings. It has also pushed me to blog more, and I appreciate that it's on a site I control and own, not for Facebook to manipulate and de-prioritize.