Do Glasses Ruin Your Eyesight? 

How did humans pre glasses deal with poor eye sight

"glasses make your eyes worse!" Well I already can't see jack without e'm so...

I always noticed that after usually sleeping and not having glasses on I could see better first thing after waking up rather than taking them off after wearing them for a while

The video : Do glasses ruin your eyesight? The man: 🤓

How things change... "also just look cool" was NOT what I heard about my glasses while growing up

I love when people tell me that "GLASSES MAKE YOUR EYESIGHT BAD SO DONT WEAR THEM!!!!" Because, like, my prescription is -4.75... There is no "don't wear your glasses" for me, unless someone would like to get me a super well-trained dog.

When my eyes tear up, I can see clearly... why is that??

If my vision was mildly blurry and reasonably okay to deal with without glasses, I would just go without. But being nearsighted with a prescription of -3.50, I have to wear them all the time. The only time I take them off is when I'm going to bed.

"And also just look cool" You got that right!!

The myope club!!!!

My eyesight is super blurry so when I see a cockroach, I take my glasses off, then i can kill it thinking it's just a hairball

I just got my glasses today, when i tried them on, i was blown away. The eye doctor said i only needed them to see far away, but when i put them on for the first time i realized that i had been seeing the world slightly blurry forever and i never knew it. I like wearing glasses :)

Got a glasses ad right before this lol

i know someone who told me that they stopped wearing their glasses during the summer because he lost them. his eye sight started to return to normal without them and when he finally got new ones they just made his vision blurry when he put them on.

Of course they do. Starting with the first minus lens they gave you!

I hate Glasses; I have one eye that is Near-Sighted, and the other is Far-Sighted but my Brain tries to Autocorrect both Eyes and I just wind up with being unable to see at any Distance.

I remember back in grade school, before contact lenses were a thing, People would often wonder why people with glasses were frequently so smart. Its not because smart people need glasses, its because smart people are smart enough to wear glasses when they need them.

I started having vision issues when I was 13-14. Not bad, but had problems seeing the whiteboard in class. I wore contacts for about 8 years until 22 yrs old. I then wore glasses for the last 7 years. My vision actually improved by 0.5 in both eyes over the course of my twenties. Just providing some level of proof that glasses don't ruin your eyes. They actually may help!

I bet the farm that 95% of the people that viewed this video are all FOUR-EYES who checked to see if glasses really DO ruin our eyesight 😂

Wearing full prescription glasses for close-up will ruin your eyesight. This has been demonstrated in studies. Once I realised this and learned active focus, I was able to reverse my myopia from -2.00 to now seeing 20/20 with my naked eyes. I help others do the same at my channel and with my course. People need to know there are alternatives.

As an astigmatic person, I feel left out.

can bad glasses give you headaches? what about other eye problems not specifically related to the glasses themselves?

When I first read the title I thought it was, "Do *Gases* Ruin Your Eyesight?" After I PUT ON my glasses I figured it out.

THEY DIDN'T FIGURE THAT OUT TILL 2002, WTF

What are frogs?

My eye doctor scientifically labelled me "blind as a bat" haha!

Yes. Near work causes myopia, 100%. Minus lenses are then prescribed but when used for near make things even closer hence vision worsening over time. Minis lenses accelerate the process 4 fold. Nearsightedness is preventable + partly reversible if you're not a high myope

Actually, in science, long term, uncontrolled close work create the problem. The minus lens, simply makes matters worse.

This was a particularly interesting episode to me! A lot of the time I have a fairly good idea of what the answer is ("we don't know") but this info was completely new to me. Yay for SciShow and the Patrons!!

I underwent a lasik procedure 3 months ago, no more glasses for me! ... Until I get older and need reading glasses. Because ageing sucks.

I like this guy, positive and always tells me what I wanna hear

Got my eyesight checked today and figured out I’m nearsighted. 😭

Thank you, I have been curious about this subject for a few years now. Now I can put that to rest.

I'm nearsighted in my left eye and farsighted in my right eye, as well as having astigmatism in both eyes

Thank you. This was short and very helpful.

This was actually so helpful, thanks!

00:17 - but the lens of our eye stretches naturally when our ciliary muscle is in a relaxed state (as it is for distance vision). It is when the lens is being pushed so that it bulges out that the ciliary muscles are working hard. That is why a lot of close up causes eye strain. The statement you made at the beginning of this video only really applying to people who have presbyopia and wear their reading glasses excessively, never challenging their eyes to do close up work. For anyone who has myopia, or is short-sighted, wearing glasses forces the ciliary muscle to stay tensed up, until our biology finds a short cut, which studies suggest is axial elongation, or perhaps choroidal thickness. If you are shortsighted and you wear glasses it sure does make your eye sight worse, and if you wear them for close up work it is likely to get worse quickly.

Astigmatism ftw, I can't live without my glasses

I have an identical twin sister. We both were prescribed glasses in 3rd Grade for nearsightedness. I always wore my but she hated glasses and barely wears them. My vision has continued to get worse and every year I need stronger glasses. My vision is now 20/120. My sister's vision is 20/40. I blame hours of looking at a computer monitor with glasses while my sister didn't.

I love you guys. I don't watch basic cable anymore. I just watch shows on the internet and I literally watch you guys at the least every other day.

The optical industry is a billion dollar industry! You need to look at the real studies that are being suppressed and ignored.

stopped wearing glasses, eye sight got better. even stopped having it required to drive. so... dunnoo....

I love how you roll your eyes to the ceiling (and beyond) with this myth lol!

Damn i cried the whole night about just thinking the good times i had without my glasses when i wasnt being called a four eyed nerd, when i could have wore sunglasses... ah good times

I've heard myths that claim that hearing aids make you go deaf quicker in a similar way, which is ridiculous. All they do is make the sounds loud enough that the hard-of-hearing person can hear properly. There are no "hearing muscles" that get weaker and more dependent on the hearing aids. Seriously, who makes this up?

I finally found out why the eye doctor gave me glasses that didn't improve my vision when I was a kid. thank you

And remember get an eye exam every 2 years my optometrist gave me a lecture because I dint go for like 5 years and my glasses needed to be a lot stronger

when I used to be a kid I could see fine, I use my glasses all the time and now I see blurry with out my glasses.

There is one exception: prisms If you're eyes are crooked, and you get prescribed prisms, that's usually fine if your eye muscles are working correctly but are just slightly off. In my case, it was a slight weakness of the eye muscle, and prisms actually made that worse, and I have since lost the ability to correct that weakness without professional eye therapy, which I can't afford. I know this isn't on the clear -> blurry scale, but it does affect your vision significantly, since it can produce double vision, or your brain will ignore one eye when it is crooked as such. This destroys depth perception, and can make driving an impossibility.

Wearing glasses frequently can make you more dependant on them though. I'm a bit long sighted and am mostly fine without my glasses, but my eyes get strained quite quickly from focusing. The less I wear my glasses, the longer my eyes can go without getting strained as the muscles that focus them get used more. The video briefly touched on this, but it's quite a significant point for people with vision like me. When I'm not wearing my glasses I can consciously move the muscles to focus and unfocus my eyes, which from what I gather a lot of people can't do!

When I was a child I had really bad myopia (I couldn't see at all past my elbow with my arm elongated) but now at 17 and I can see clearly up until my fingertips with my arm stretched out in front of me, getting your eyes checked regularly and wearing glasses/contacts does help in childhood and I recommend wearing your glasses if they've been prescribed they really help!

Oooohhh that's why my vision is getting worse!! MY EYE IS GROWING!

When I was young, my eyesight was around 20/15. Then around 12 years old, my vision started to degrade. My prescription was getting stronger such that I was getting new glasses every year. Each time, I would get glasses that restored my 20/15 vision. Then one year when I was getting new glasses, the guy stopped at 20/20. "I can usually see better than this", I said. "Well, I could keep going, but since you do mostly computer work, it's just going to give you eye strain as your eyes have to work more to focus up close." I left that day with two pairs of glasses. A distance pair for driving and sports, and a pair that corrected me to 20/50 for computer work. My prescription has been stable since then. I was 26. The role the eye strain played in my changing prescription is unclear from just my experience, but the eye strain is real. If I forget my computer glasses and try to do a full work day using my distance glasses, it's very uncomfortable after about four hours. I suspect there are a lot of near-sighted people who would be a lot more comfortable wearing a weaker prescription at work.

My vision used to be terrible. I couldn't see facial expressions from 5 feet away. I couldn't tell if people were looking at me or someone beside me. I couldn't tell if they were smiling or frowning from a distance. It led to a lot of awkward situations, needless to say. I lost my last pair of glasses 10 years ago and i haven't worn a pair again since then. My vision has improved objectively. I had my vision tested several times and the difference is significant from the time that i last wore glasses until today. I'm not sure if that is due to the fact that i stopped wearing glasses or my body is just aging and my eyeballs are changing shape

I wish I could be your patreon! I've watched pretty much every single video you've uploaded and I think they are amazing! However,I'm too broke to help right now, hope it changes soon. Keep up the amazing job!

I loved this episode of S-eye-Show!

What about overcorrecting then? Edit: Did anyone read my own reply before replying yourself?

All I know is my eyesight was 20/100 prior to the military. The job I wanted required no worse than 20/70. I threw away my glasses, did a lot of eye exercises, practiced keeping my eye muscles relaxed, etc. About 6 months later I qualified for the job I wanted with 20/40 in both eyes. If I kept up the exercises, my vision would hover around 20/30-20/40. If I stopped doing them, my vision would hover around 20/60-20/70. When I got out I started wearing contacts again, and my vision has slowly deteriorated to over 20/100 again.

Glassed DO make your eyes worse IF they are over prescribed (too strong). Which is frequently the case. Glasses cause no major harm if correct strength. If under strength just a tiny bit (0.25 diopter) then your eyesight may actually improve!

... So as a kid my eyesight was perfect, but now I need them to see long distance. So my eyes were normal and then they became long?! So weird! Reality is weirder than fiction! What in earth makes your eyes become longer?

The history of glasses and reading is interesting. People didn't have books usually only the church did. But when common people got books some of them found out they couldn't see very well. Books also have an interesting history from grapes, wine press, book press to books then glasses and microscopes then science books!

I always wonder, how did human race deal with this poor vision in ancient times??!!

Well this is surprising. Thanks scishow, I always thought they didn't help much

My first glasses really hurt my eyes for a long time until I realised that the orientation of the lenses makes a huge difference. By twisting them round in various dimensions the glasses no longer hurt my eyes. I am astigmatic, but it's possible this might work on all glasses equally. You can flex your glasses from side to side, and then up and down (each side in the opposite direction), and see if your eyes feel more comfortable as you do it. This will move the centre of the lens, and therefore has the effect of changing the direction that your eyes are pointing in. If you are astigmatic you will also need to rotate each lens along the axis of your line of sight to find the optimal orientation to give you maximum focus. It might not be the same on each side, and it could vary over time.

Sorry, that might be right for many people, but I can assure you my eye deterioration at least was accelerated when I started wearing glasses. In my case, I had better than 20:20 vision (better than 20:10 at one point), but focusing up close started causing me headaches. Getting glasses fixed the headaches, but within a few months, I could no longer focus up close without them. I realize that the hardening of my lens was responsible for the increasing difficulty for my eye muscles to shape it for focus. However, getting glasses meant the muscles no longer had to work that hard and/or the lens no longer needed to be flexed to the same extreme, so it became impossible to focus up close without the glasses. Obviously, eventually I would have been unable to focus up close without the glasses eventually, but the glasses definitely accelerated the process. Now if someone could only invent a material with nearly the optics and flexibility of my younger lens, I could have that wonderful eyesight back...

That's the question I've asked myself many times in recent days, developing myopic vision. Big thanks for debunking that myth, SciShow!

I've been wearing the same glasses for almost a year and when i got them i was told I was close to legally blind and now when I take them off i can actually clearly see things about a foot away so clearly my eyes were not made worse by my glasses

Oh fun, a glasses ad!

Rip to those kids who now lost their vision.

From what i know from information there hasnt been enough studies done to confirm or call it a myth.

my left eye sees far distances blurry but my right eye is absolutely perfect

I NEED THIS

A strong minus lens at 20/40. Answer = yes! Solid science. ODs live in a dream world of denial.

So why doesn't feel like my vision is getting worse when I take off my glasses for a brief second when I look myself in the mirror only to see a blurred person?

“Glasses ruins your eyes” Me who can’t see without them: okay?

This made my day

This is the kind of click bait I love because he answers the question almost immediately. It's just great.

Long eyeballs unite! But yeah, one of my parents friends was trying to preach about how glasses were bad, he went on saying that after he got glasses, his eyes suddenly got a lot worse when not wearing them, so he got laser eye surgery so he wouldn't have to wear the things he though was making them so bad :I I am keeping my glasses thanks, plus my purple frames makes the green in my eyes stand out :D

I’m in my early 40’s and by doing eye exercises I’ve been able to get rid of my reading glasses and improve my far sight. It’s like going to the gym you won’t get ripped in a week you have to have dedication to improving your body same goes for your eyes

I am glad to hear this because of previous thought

Thats exactly what a guy with glasses would say

As a child I used glasses from ages 10 to 16 and then one day I just stopped. It affected me for the first couple weeks of months and then my vision felt focused and normal after a while so I did not go for a replacement. I did a eye exam for my exam at age 19 and my results showed that my vision was 20/20. I am now 32 and I have been doing an eye examination, as a part of my annual medical check-ups, for the past 8 years and my vision still remains perfect. Can you explain what happened in my case? Just curious. Ps: I was teased a lot by one specific person for wearing it as a child.

So nearsighted that I can't see the computer screen without my glasses or contacts.

There are eye exercises that special vision therapists can help you do if you have a specific enough vision problem! Glasses usually won't help someone with such a vision issue, though. My little sister needed it when she was younger, and it was really cool that her eye muscles got stronger and learned to do what they needed to do! Now she has better vision than I do, and I wear my glasses. :)

This video is really bad, john green contradicted himself by both saying weak eye muscles don't cause bad vision, and saying that eye muscles can adjust for different types of eyes. Just like any muscle EYE MUSCLES CAN BE STRENGTHENED. There is something called vision therapy, which are exercises for your eye muscles. Many people including my own brother used vision therapy and don't have to wear glasses anymore.

What does a near sighted gynecologist and a puppy have in common? A wet nose.

Last year my glasses had broken, I spent nearly 3 weeks without them. It was a struggle. I was exhausted at the end of everyday and I had to go to bed very early. My vision and constantly forcing my sight pulled so much energy it was impressive. So indeed, I do need glasses

Thank u. I feel a lot more comfortable with my new glasses.

My eyesight is 20/400. Even if it did make my eyesight worse over time, I don't care. Without them, I literally cannot function.

Went for a standard check up and my optometrist realised I had glaucoma. Saved my sight. Thank you John.

Yep, that's how they ruined my mom's vision. She had slight myopia, but the underprescribed glasses just made it worse.

Thank you for reassuring me

So the real question is - how the heck do you cure myopia? I've been removing my glasses constantly so that my ciliary muscles could get some exercise, but now you're contradicting it. Please let there be a cure soon :(

Do contacts make your eyes dryer? My mom and I both have problems with dry eyes and we suspect that it may be the contacts since the problems only started when we got contacts. No one else in the family wears contacts, and no one else has this problem.

In glad I watched this because I'm getting my glasses around this week

Thank you for your information

Me: “Hey Guys, I’m Myopic” Everyone who doesn’t wear glasses: “Nerd”

HA! Jokes on them: my eyesights ALREADY ruined!

The reason I clicked on this video is because I've noticed that since I started wearing glasses my general eyesight without them has gotten much worse. I did't even go to an optometrist for my eyesight, I went because I had scratched my eye lens months earlier and was still experiencing a weird sensation. But after examining me and finding nothing wrong as far as the scratch goes he handed me a prescription because I kinda do need glasses, mostly for driving at night. So I filled it and started wearing them for night driving. But as I've had them for two years now I've become dependent on them to keep things in focus, even during the day. I can absolutely believe that they make your eyesight worse, at least worse faster that what they would've without the glasses... I'd like to point out that I'm not trying to denigrate glasses. Just that from a subjective perspective I can understand how it's possible for glasses to worsen you unaided eyesight.

I'm not wearing my glasses right now, because I was hoping that I would be able to correct my eyeball shape. Thank you for crushing my dreams Scishow.