Do you have difficulty seeing in dim light or problems focusing on small objects and fine print? Do you now need to hold the restaurant menu at arm’s length to see what you want to order? If you have answered yes to these questions, you may have presbyopia — an eye condition that often occurs around age 40, when people experience blurred near vision when trying to focus on close objects such as smart phones, computers, books and menus.
Unfortunately, you can’t escape presbyopia, even if you’ve never had a vision problem before. There’s no way to either avoid or delay presbyopia, because it’s a natural part of the aging process. So if we cannot avoid presbyopia, then what do adults do?
According to the latest Global Presbyopia-Correcting Surgery Market Report, readers are the most common correction for the nearly 116 million American adults who have presbyopia. But what do wearing readers tell others about our age and personality? Recent research conducted by Jacksonville University researchers, in partnership with Alcon, the global leader in eye care and a division of Novartis, found that readers make us look older, intelligent and also nerdy. I’m OK with being perceived as intelligent, but like most Gen X adults, “older” and “nerdy” are not the looks I’m going for. Let’s take a closer look at these survey findings to find out how much older readers make us appear.
The survey was designed to evaluate the effect that readers have on our perceived age. To accomplish this goal, the Jacksonville University researchers conducted 50 in-depth interviews on Gen X adults’ perceptions of aging, which included sharing pictures of people with and without readers and asking interviewees to guess their age and personal characteristics.
One group of pictures was of “normal” adults, and the other group of pictures consisted of well-known media reporters.
Interestingly, the interviewees reported that people looked older when wearing readers — but the effect was much stronger for the well-known media reporters. In fact, 55 percent of the interviewees said the “normal” people looked older when wearing readers compared to 88 percent of interviewees who stated that the media reporters looked older when wearing readers.
How much older do they look older when wearing readers? The most common response was they looked three to five years older. When the interviewees were asked ” Why do readers make people look older?” quotes included: “People wh o wear reading glasses look feeble,” ” reading glasses equals aging” and ” it brings out wrinkles.”
These results are similar to study findings from New Zealand researchers who found that although glasses improved adults’ quality of life, wearing glasses had negative associations with aging. In other words, they make us look older than our actual age.
Unfortunately, the mystical fountain of youth has yet to be discovered, but removing reading glasses and replacing them with multifocal contact lenses is a simple option to help people look their age while correcting presbyopia.
So the answer to the question, “Do readers make us look older?” is a qualified yes. Some people may even say wearing contacts might get you called “miss,” while readers will get you called “ma’am.” Learn about an alternative solution to readers at loseyourreaders.com.
Disclosure: I have received compensation for my partnership with Alcon, but all opinions expressed here are my own.
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Do Reading Glasses Make You Look Older? originally appeared on usnews.com
