If I have friends on Facebook, is there a way to unfollow their comments/chats?

[Kim]

I want to have a facebook account for my work at home groups but facebook is forcing me to have friends. If I make some friends, do I need to follow their daily comments (meaning would they show up in my feed daily)? Is there a way I can NOT get their daily comments on my newsfeed?? I had to delete my facebook acct. a few years ago due to too many daily feed from friends. Please help.
The reason I say they "force" about adding friends, I've had facebook for a 2 weeks now and everytime when I post a message on a group, the screen pops up saying "my account doesn't look like real person, please verify, etc" and I need to go thru verify code using cell phone. And it asks my next step is to add 5 friends.
I didn't want my personal friends to know that I work from home so I didn't add any friends. I feel that facebook is bullying me into be a social at the level I'm not comfortable with but I do like groups that I belong to for advice/info. What to do?

[Cosa Nostra]

You will get notification of their comments only from the posts you have commented/liked. when you comment/like a post, a button appears that says "unfollow". Click it and you won't get any notifications from those posts.
Other than that you get notifications about what do your "Close Friends: (Those are with a yellow star on their profiles) share. You can unsubscribe from those notifications or categorize close friends as just friends.
Besides FYI, FB doesn't force you to have friends, it just suggests friends. Its up to you whether you wanna add them or not. Plus you don't get notifications of their chats.