Meta is ditching this useful feature from Facebook Messenger in September trends now

Facebook Messenger users who have had the app set as their default option for texting on their mobile phones should prepare themselves for the fall.

Meta — the parent company for Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp — announced that the feature syncing Messenger with SMS texts will be discontinued following all updates after September 28, 2023.

But this isn't the first time the company has rescinded support for SMS cell phone texts for Messenger. The feature first launched in 2012, only to be dropped in 2013, and relaunched again in 2016 as, in Facebook's words then, 'SMS on steroids.'

Short for 'Short Messaging Service', SMS is the decades-old industry standard established for text-based communications between pagers, cell phones, and other wireless devices. 

Established in 1986, SMS has become the industry bedrock permitting many tech companies' mobile messaging platforms to be compatible.

Industry watchers and dedicated Messenger users are speculating that the app's SMS compatibility may yet make another return, or perhaps be folded into Meta's WhatsApp, which is more widely used on mobile phones.

In the meantime, however, Messenger users will have to adjust their habits.

'You will still be able to send and receive SMS messages through your cellular network,' according to a notice posted to Messenger's Help Center, 'and access your SMS message history through your phone's new default messaging app.' 

'If you do not choose your own new default messaging app,' the notice continued, 'your SMS messaging will automatically go to your phone's default messaging app, such as the Android Messages app.'

For years, SMS text messaging has been the main

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