If he could learn to care less (for comparison, he should not try to read all of Twitter), then Facebook would not present such a problem.
> My Facebook page was maxed out at 5K friends and was very active.
5000 friends??? No wonder he got tired of it. Before I passed 100 I rarely used the 'hide' button, now I use it more, and I think hiding people and blocking apps (and sometimes turning chat off) is a good way to make fb experience less annoying.