The debate of whether contact lenses or glasses are the better way to see is a debate that has been ongoing for quite sometime. Some individuals detest contacts because they could never imagine 'putting their finger in their eye' and others claim that contact lenses are better because the person's vision is not restricted to the rim of their eyeglasses.

Glasses and vision

Glasses have been around in some form for quite some time. To be exact, it is the 8th century B.C. in which some kind of lens was used to help those with vision problems. It was the 1st century B.C. in which recorded history claims that individuals were using emeralds to see better because of the magnification they produced.

Fortunately, we're not using emeralds to see nowadays. The restriction of eyesight is hard to imagine when using a method to see what's in front of you. However, still today individuals feel that they are held prisoner by their glasses because they can only see so much through the lenses.

At one time, the frames of glasses were very large, so a person's overall vision was not too bad. The only issue was looking left and right. In other words, peripheral vision was not very good. Even today peripheral vision with glasses is not something that is a luxury. Glasses have become smaller in order to stay with the styles and now the actual seeing surface is even smaller. Many feel that their eyeglass options have been significantly compromised with these smaller frames because they feel they have to look straight ahead at all times to see.

Contacts and vision

Contact lenses give a person the illusion that they don't have corrective lenses. You can't feel them, others can't see them unless they look at your eyes closely, and contacts open you up to an entirely new world.

Being that they rest directly on your eye, you can see all around you without having the barrier of your rim ruining your peripheral vision. You can look up, down, left, and right and be able to see the world. That is something that is not done by glasses. The one thing that is different is that contacts do have to be placed onto the eye, but there have been changes in the contact lens industry such as the development of contacts that can be work non-stop for 30 days. This means being able to sleep in them, giving the illusion when you wake up in the morning that vision problems do not exist for you.

Pros and cons

There are advantages to glasses over contact lenses just as there are advantages to contact lenses over glasses. Unfortunately, contact lenses are not able to correct near or farsightedness while correcting astigmatism, so many have to deal with astigmatism while correcting the near or farsightedness. There are contacts made for astigmatism, but that's all they do; correct the astigmatism. Glasses can correct multiple vision problems in a single lens.

However, glasses do cause you to not see things for what they are. Sizes and colors of things may look different. With contacts, you see the world for what it really is. That means you should weigh the pros and cons before making a decision. If you can deal with the small cons of one or the other, then you have your answer as to what you should do to correct your vision. Even if you have never worn contacts, it is never to late to try them in order to decide if they are what is right for you and your vision.