I don’t think anyone is actually trying to connect with distant cousins for social interaction; rather the shared DNA segments provide hard evidence to confirm distant ancestors. I got into genealogy a couple years ago after thumbing through some old family documents and I’ve been able to confirm 6th cousins (traced via our shared ancestors) using 23andMe data.

Now there are probably some who think genealogy is a silly pastime and maybe it is, but researching my family history helps me feel grounded and more connected to humanity so I derive a lot of benefit from it.