The 14 Stupidest Ways Facebook Now Lets You Update Your Status

Facebook just rolled out a new set of status options in the UK. They seem pretty dumb.

Go to update your status and you'll now see a smiley icon, which brings up a menu of options: feeling, watching, reading, listening to, drinking, and eating.

The first of these involves emoticons, and is very MSN Messenger/early Myspace. The latter all link to the relevant Facebook pages.

It's kind of fun, but also feels a little juvenile, and raises a number of questions. Such as...

1. What kind of simpleton would ever use this option?

2. Or this one?

3. Who broadcasts the fact that they feel "comfortable"? Is that the kind of thing anyone shares?

4. This one feels pretty niche, too.

5. So does this one.

6. Fresh? What is this, the '90s?

7. The auto-suggestions are weird too. Why does Facebook suggest to me these five books above all others?

These are presumably supposed to be tailored to your tastes, but I have never Liked any of these things, or anything remotely related to them.

8. And why these five films/shows?

9. Who are all these people?

10. Why are the emoticons for "ashamed" and "sexy" almost exactly the same?

11. Will anyone take these seriously, or will they just be used for silliness?

12. Or dirty jokes.

Via Twitter: @utterben

13. Or showing off.

14. Or making slightly obscure puns.

This might not be a permanent feature. Facebook has described the new emoticons as "just a small test to see if people are interested in sharing their actions in a more visual way."

Let's hope they don't take it off in a big way. After all, if users' feeds get cluttered with these new actions, they'll want to use this one pretty much all the time.