These days, whether you’re standing in a line or sitting in a waiting room, you’ll see the same thing: slouched shoulders and down-turned faces focused on smartphone screens. People are completely immersed in whatever’s happening in the palm of their hands, mindlessly swiping through apps.

Smartphones are amazing things, but sometimes it can be hard to separate “screen-time” from “life-time”. Google Glass is the perfect transition from “heads-down” technology.

The device is a headset with projected display capabilities, a camera and internet connection. It could revolutionize the mobile device industry and simultaneously cause a public uproar over privacy concerns.

As of now Glass is still in testing to several thousand “pioneers” by invitation only, but it will be open for a wider audience later this year.

Erran Carmel, father of junior Mia Carmel and information technology professor at American University, recently purchased a Google Glass, which sells for $1,500.

He sees many benefits of Glass, but admits to its creepiness, finding one app, NameTag, particularly disconcerting.

“The app uses facial recognition technologies, where it can give you the background of everyone that’s in my system,” Erran said.  “So if you are a business acquaintance of mine, as I’m walking into a meeting, it automatically pulls up when we last met, when your daughter’s birthday is and all kinds of stuff like that pulling from Google Now, LinkedIn, Facebook, past emails with them…etc.”

Google Glass has a lot of capabilities, all of which are perfectly legal, but some people cannot help but feel that their privacy is being violated.

“There’s software now that can scan the internet and build entire profiles of people,” Erran said. “We are very close to a time when you will be walking down the street and total strangers will be able to instantly know who you are. I don’t think there’s anyone who is going to say that’s not creepy, but it’s going to become a part of our world and we’re going to have to accept it.”

Senior Amolak Nagi had the opportunity to work with Glass this past summer at an internship at The National Institute of Standards and Technology, and was also offered an opportunity to create apps for Glass.

Although Nagi acknowledges that Google Glass could be groundbreaking technology, he believes that it will truly take off when developers create more apps.

“There isn’t much you can really do with it [as of now],” Nagi said. “This was the same thing when the iPhone came out in 2007 simply because app developers needed time to create apps that make the device more useful.”

Despite the privacy controversy, most people will agree that Google Glass has the potential to change the way humans go about their lives.

The Google Glass website claims “it’s surprisingly simple.” You use the verbal command: “OK Glass,” following with a command like, “take a picture” to take a picture. You can record what you see, hands-free, and can even share what you see, live. You can get directions projected right in front of you, ask whatever’s on your mind (similar to Siri), translate your voice and even play games.

The Google Glass also opens itself to more complex uses. You can have a guided tour of any museum. Every time you stop in front of an art piece it will recognize it and instantly give you background with an in-depth explanation into your ear, doing the same for a city.

“Let’s say you’re in Time Square today,” Carmel said. “It can superimpose Time Square in front of you in 1930 and say look how it was in 1930 and look how it is today.”

I’ve had the opportunity to toy around with the technology for an hour, and although Google claims it’s simple to use, junior Mia Carmel and I have to disagree. Mia said while using Glass, she found herself feeling like her grandparents, who barely know how to work cell phones. A typical session went like this:

“OK Glass, capture this. OK Glass, capture. Take a picture. OK Glass, take a picture. Oh my god… OK Glass, send to Mia. Yeah you hear that, you hear that Glass? Send to…oh it’s sending to you. Wait Dad, why is it giving me directions to Illinois?”

But despite the learning curve, as more people start to familiarize themselves with Glass and it becomes embedded in our lives, Erran feels that it will become a norm, just as cell phones did.

“Phones were creepy too at one point,” Erran said. “What happens in this society is that we adopt and adapt to new technology—we get used to it and it becomes part of our culture. And we will with [Google Glass] too.”