There are more than 125 million Americans who wear some sort of corrective lenses (eye glasses, contact lenses, etc.). This means that approximately one out of every three American citizens wears something to be able to see things normally…this is 1/3 of everybody form the age of one week to 114 tears old…I would imagine that one end of this continuum wears glasses more than the other.
While this may be a pretty reasonable question to ask, there are scanty bits of evidence out there, and there is almost no discussion as to why so many people wear glasses. This may be a good question, if only to try to get some real answer. I have, as many others, been presented with anecdotal stories as to why this is so. It is always about the fact that we, as modern humans, spend so much time dealing with fine details close work (i.e. a lot of reading…). I guess that you should presume that America is filled with expert readers because of all of this close effort.
I suppose I should present my own biases here, since I have been wearing prescription eye glasses since the early 1960’s…i.e. a professional eye glass wearer…
In any case, this question, for me, goes onto the list of questions which one needs to be prepared for in case of interacting with precocious elementary school students. Some others on this list are: why is the sky blue? Where does all of the salt in seawater come from? And having a good number of names for dinosaurs at the ready…
Number of Eyeglass Wearers
http://answers.google.com/answers/threadview/id/39279.html
Essilor Magazine
http://www.essilor.com/IMG/pdf/Essilor_Magazine_2.pdf
