The exact same thing happened to me. Non technical family members whom I hadn't contacted in years were now excited to join this 'linkedin' thing. That goddam company made it look like I was reaching out to people I haven't talked to in years, creating awkward situations and making two weeks of my life far more stressful than they should have.

They even had some buttons to 'retract' the emails, but all those did was kill the link in all the emails sent out, creating another wave of emails from family members 'hey, the link is dead'.

I deleted my linkedin account and have not looked back. I strongly encourage everyone to do the same.