New Facebook feature helps you tag music, TV shows or movies in updates

It’s not hard to dash out a Facebook status update saying how much you’re digging “House of Cards” or the new Lorde song.

But Facebook wants to make it even easier.

The social network on Wednesday said it’s rolling out an audio-recognition feature that lets you automatically tag music, TV shows or movies in status updates. The feature employs your phone’s microphone to identify the song or TV show while it’s playing and tag it in your post, saving you the trouble of typing it yourself.

In this way, the new tool acts sort of like Shazam, the mobile app that can tell you what song is playing on the radio.

Facebook said the unnamed feature will be available to U.S. users on Android and iOS devices “in the coming weeks.”

Of course, the more information Facebook users share about themselves and their tastes, the more Facebook can target ads at its 1.2 billion users.

Here’s how it works: If you’ve turned the feature on, you’ll see an audio icon jiggling on your phone’s screen as you write a status update. That means the feature is listening and trying to find a match; if it does, you can then add the song, TV show or movie to your post.

As with any Facebook post, you can choose which of your friends can see it. You can also turn the feature off at any time by clicking an audio icon at the top right of the screen.

Facebook said that if you choose to share a song, your friends can listen to a 30-second snippet. For TV shows, Facebook said your News Feed post will highlight the specific season and episode you’re watching, “so you can avoid any spoilers and join in conversations with your friends after you’ve caught up.”

That’s probably for the best — nobody wants overeager commenters revealing unforseen deaths in “Game of Thrones.”

For movies, the feature will presumably work best for people watching at home, since most movie houses (and moviegoers) frown on glowing screens in the theater.