The Vision Differences Between Contacts and Glasses

If you need corrective lenses to see clearly, there are two choices: glasses or contact lenses. There are many factors affecting why people choose contacts over glasses or vice versa. While both glasses and contact lenses offer improved vision, there are differences in the types of vision corrections the two offer.

Distortion

• Since contact lenses sit directly on your eye, there is no distance between the eye and the lens, which limits distortion. Depending on the type of glasses you wear, the distance between the eye and glasses lenses can cause objects to distort and appear to bend or change size.

Peripheral Vision

• Since glasses extend the lenses only in front of your eyes (with a few exceptions), peripheral vision is fuzzy while wearing glasses. Contact lenses cover the entire pupil, so your peripheral vision stays as clear as your direct line of sight.

Adverse Weather

• Rain and snow cause water spots on glasses, which can block part of your vision. In colder weather, glasses also fog up as you walk from outside into a heated building or through prolonged physical exertion in cold weather. Contacts will not fog up and do not get water spots on them, meaning better visibility in adverse weather.

Astigmatism and Eye Injury

• Contacts may not be appropriate for extreme cases of astigmatism, in which the eye shape is oblong or irregular, or to treat vision problems due to corneal injury, since the lens must sit directly on the eye.