Health. Wearing glasses is becoming increasingly occasional as visual impairments progress.

The OpinionWay Visual Health Barometer for the National Association for the Improvement of Sight (AsnaV) published on June 12 reveals a surprising, even worrying, trend: wearing glasses is becoming increasingly occasional, even as visual impairments are progressing.

In fact, 46% of respondents report suffering from distance vision problems (myopia, astigmatism) and 48% from near vision problems (presbyopia, astigmatism, visual fatigue). Despite this, many do not wear their glasses when they are most needed:

• 48% do not wear them in front of a screen (compared to 41% in 2019);
• 45% do not wear them for household chores (compared to 25% in 2016);
• 40% do not wear them when driving a car (compared to 16% in 2016);
• 38% say they do not wear their glasses when traveling by another means of transport (bicycle, scooter, etc.);
• 36% do not wear them when driving a motorized two-wheeler (compared to 16% in 2016).

The consequences are very real. Among them, night driving, which represents less than 10% of traffic, is responsible for nearly 50% of fatal accidents, according to Road Safety data (2022).

At work, not wearing glasses also causes visual fatigue, which reduces efficiency, according to the World Health Organization. This observation was already highlighted in 2016 by the second edition of the Observatory of Visual and Hearing Health, where 93% of working people over 50 reported vision problems.

Among them, 76% were bothered by occasional visual discomfort, such as eyestrain or blurred vision, while 9% suffered from eye conditions such as cataracts, glaucoma, or age-related macular degeneration. Yet, at work, 25% of respondents who were required to wear glasses or contact lenses did not.

Furthermore, 43% of working people aged over 50 also felt that the time spent in front of screens was too high: excessive accommodation, constant reflections, and varied strong lights put strain on the eye and the muscles surrounding it.

For 27%, glasses and/or contact lenses were no longer suitable for their vision. 24% attributed their general fatigue to their vision problems, and 13% cited concentration problems due to their reduced vision.