So, cat pics for everyone!!!
I don't follow. My friends and family have always know how to find me. This has been true even without Facebook.
They know because I've told them. Often in person. Or by phone.
I'm sort of puzzled by the idea of there being people who are important to me who I don't keep in regular touch with without having to rely on some specific Web site.
If anything, sites like Facebook are good for looking into people I don't really care about, or who don't really care about me.
I can see people relying on Facebook to keep track of this rather than needing to have someone manually manage it. On the other hand, since it's family, you can just call someone you do have the number for, and work your way through the chain to get to someone that has the correct info.
I personally live thousand kilometers away from my family and friends, and it's just hard to keep in touch with everybody without a social network. Phone calls, mails and chat would never be as efficient/cheap/time-saving that social networks. Plus, they lack that "social" thing.
Regarding that "elitism" when you talk about your friends, there's "family and close friends", and there's "friends", the ones that are not _that_ important in your life, but with whom you'd still like to be in touch with.
Take for example the "keeping in touch" point. I'm going home in few weeks, I just had to post a Facebook status to tell all my friends so we can meet. How would I do it without Facebook? Send mails? Not everyone use emails. Call them, it's freaking expensive.
Privacy concerns scare me, and that's why I'm trying to leave Google stuff, but leaving Facebook is just impossible at the moment, simply because it's useful and there's no alternative.
The privacy concerns we have about Facebook I know older relatives had about the telephone. To this day they still refrain from giving out much information on it and keep calls as short as possible.