To Thank or Not To Thank

I’ve searched before for an answer to this but never been able to find one.

I know that Thanking someone supposedly gives them random coins and gems. But am I correct that that really only works if you’re joining with genuine FB friends? I connected the game to FB, but none of my FB friends are playing this game.

So all of my buddies I select in the game are automated ones.

So given that, is there any advantage to ME to either thank or not thank a buddy, when the buddy is just a system automated one and not an actual FB friend of mine?