My guess would be that once AR allows easy sharing, e.g. showing others a funny AR cat video, it will quickly become socially accepted to wear frequently.
Hard disagree. Except for brief interactions like ordering a coffee, I don’t think it is at all socially common for people to keep headphones on when they talk with others. Maybe it varies by culture, or social circle.
The people with the worst behaviour are pushing the norm.
With younger people earbuds seem more like a fashion statement (you also don't take off ear rings to talk to people) and the noise cancelling/transparency will actually do the opposite: filter out background noise so that you can be heard more clearly.
Similarly taking out a Nokia used to signal that you will not be paying attention for a while. Nowadays it might instead be you taking a nice photo, showing off something to others etc.
VR headsets are definitely not at this point yet, but I am not so sure they never will be.
If I go and meet with someone in person, I generally do it because I want to see them up close, face to face. If we are both wearing VR headsets that hide our faces, the whole premise goes out the window.
Eventually, VR headsets might overcome this problem by accurately portraying the other person's face in some way, but we are nowhere there yet.