The main concept that i'm trying to explore with earWorm is the idea of socially responsible wearable technology. What i mean by socially responsible is personally choosing to use technologies that have a diminished impact on our social interactions. It seems like every new information technology goes through a period of social acceptability testing and adjustment. This can be seen in the gradual acceptance of small touch screen devices and personal computers through the last 20 years. Wearables seem to me to be a lot arder for society to adjust to, even bluetooth headsets still feel too chunky and corny for my own tastes.

It seems to me that the reason we have a hard time with many types of wearable computing devices is that they require our "points of attention" (or POI as ill call them). These are literally the holes in our heads that allow us to communicate with the outside world, and that we innately know if we can see those holes that, generally speaking, we have the ability to communicate with that other person. Here are a couple of examples:

1. Headphones - earholes

Everyone has been told to take em off at one point in time or another, the ubiquitous earbud is both physically dangerous in that it drowns out the outside world, and socially dangerous as they are widely seen as a big "shhhhh" to anyone even attempting conversation.

2. Glass - eyeholes

Having been in conversation with a few explorers i can say, i personally do not seem to enjoy having a camera jammed in my face and a tiny screen between me and a conversational partner. 

With earWorm, I hope to hide the tech (yes there are implications for hidden tech as well, but might as well dive in), so that it doesn't get in the way of conversations and body language, while still offering the wearer the ability to get the notifications and info they want to be served.