This post touches on the topics of futurism and perhaps transhumanism; however, only with minor focus on technology.
In a very condensed form, the Idea is that the face is distracting. Someone talking to you might assume things about you based on your face. If everyone wears a mostly basic mask, which effectively covers your face from view, others' focus falls on your personality and expression choices, instead of anatomical details you can’t change.
Why a mostly basic mask? Determining how basic such a mask should be is not easy. That is because a mask not being basic and being a canvas for self-expression (similar to tattoos now) would probably be a really good thing. I also like the way the game Sable handles masks, where they represent the wearer's passion, calling, or occupation. However, a more liberal system where masks mean less (than in Sable) and could be customized more, while still being somewhat basic, could offer the most benefit. The basicness might be more important than it sounds, as it would lead others to be unable to evaluate you effectively until you say something. Thus, everyone in this hypothetical society would be able to effectively shape how they are perceived. That would, for example, get rid of at least surface-level racism.
It might also serve practical purposes. Here we touch on transhumanism. Smart glasses are cool (at least to people who enjoy tech), but almost no one wears them. For the glasses form-factor they are very chunky and most people are not used to that. Therefore they dislike the idea of the person in front of them wearing anything smart on their face. But if everyone were to wear masks which have much more space for electronics than glasses, it would probably become the norm eventually, simply out of convenience.
Additionally, masks could still offer the same benefits they do today (e.g., respirators). Assuming we (humans) don’t solve climate change in time, wearing a mask to protect from dust and pollution might become necessary anyway.
An additional benefit could be that if everyone has the same de facto “basic face-card”, lots of anxieties about one's own face could be resolved. It removes the pressure to comply with societal norms and standards that, depending on your genetics and background, might be impossible to comply with. Just as an example, why have we as a society decided that narrow eyes make someone look stupid? This notion is toxic and would be resolved by collective mask-wearing.
Speaking of anxieties, everyone wearing a mask could help people with social anxiety. Often people with anxiety find it easier to interact with others when they do so in text (e.g. Discord, or forums of all kinds) or games like VR-chat, where the user can hide behind an avatar of their choosing. Wearing a mask, provided wearing the mask is considered normal, would offer the same benefits. It would allow the wearers to have a physical separation between them and the world, which allows them to distance themselves from a potentially unpleasant environment in some regard.
I was gonna elaborate on the benefits in regards to privacy, but decided to cut this short after I found out that there are effective methods for identifying someone in surveillance footage based on their walking and movement pattern.
Now, about the drawbacks. The first one is easy. Hygiene and eating. A human face oozes various fluids, e.g., your nose running. That would require taking off the mask in certain circumstances. Eating too. Maybe that could be solved with segmented masks that can be partially folded away to reveal your mouth without taking the mask off when eating in a social setting? I would dislike the conventions from the TV series The Mandalorian, where a religious sect mandates helmet-wearing at all times and members of that sect have to eat in private, where only then they are allowed to take their helmet off.
The next hurdle is comfort. Wearing a mask on your face all day might be uncomfortable. You would have them attached to your face after all. However, as these masks would not be disposable and therefore higher quality than the masks we all remember from the Covid era. Also, it would be focused on casual wear and designers would certainly find ways to make them comfortable. I believe we might eventually end up thinking about them similarly to shoes. They cover all of our feet for the whole day too after all.
The biggest issue of a society wearing masks would probably be how much of human communication is made up of facial expressions. Over 50% apparently. Wearing masks would obviously impair our ability to read facial cues. This would create a communication deficit that would take time to overcome. Humans however are good at adapting and communication might, over time, shift towards voice, gestures and much clearer communication in the things we are saying (think of tone indicators, but just spoken out).
What is my conclusion? Should we do this? You will love my answer: Maybe. Humor aside, I think this has a few more benefits than drawbacks and I personally would be totally okay with dealing with the drawbacks. At the very least, this is an Idea worth trying out at a smaller scale. Maybe a Burning-Man-style event, which is no stranger to trying out novel ideas on how society could work in a different way, would be a good opportunity to attempt this. I think it's worth a shot.
Author's note: This is my first post on LessWrong. Thank you for reading. I tried to do everything right. If I missed any of the conventions, please tell me! I am open to any feedback.