I went through a phase in high school where, despite having perfect vision, I wore black plastic glasses frames with no lenses.
I didn’t actually need glasses. But I somehow thought wearing lensless glasses made me look cool. (Oh, the folly of youth.)
Ironic comeuppance soon prevailed, because just a few years later, when I started staring at a computer screen for several hours a day at one of my first newspaper jobs, my eyes began hurting.
I went to an eye doctor. He told me my eyes were probably under strain looking at a bright screen for so long, and he suggested that I needed glasses—not with a prescription to help with my vision, but with an “antiglare coating” to help with my eyestrain.
I wore a few different versions of those antiglare glasses for many, many years. They worked. My eyes stopped hurting.
But last year, wanting to avoid a trip to the eye doctor and eager to try something a little more stylish, I decided to try blue-light blocking glasses instead—despite the paucity of scientific evidence backing up their eyestrain-reducing claims. Specifically, I decided to try Wirecutter’s pick for “cheap and cheerful” blue-light blocking glasses. (What am I, really, if not cheap and cheerful?)
I bought two pairs on sale for the ludicrously low price of $15 total. I’ve worn them every workday since. My eyes haven’t hurt once.
Top pick
These square-shaped glasses are inexpensive, and they come in a wide range of colors, if you want to stock up. But they’re heavier than our other picks, and the lenses have a noticeable orange tint.
Now, to be clear: There is no convincing scientific data to back up claims that blue-light blocking glasses will “magically cure headaches or tired eyes,” as Wirecutter senior staff writers Kaitlyn Wells and Zoe Vanderweide explain in our guide to blue-light blocking glasses.
Let me turn it over to them to emphasize this with extreme clarity: “Blue-light blocking glasses are often touted as a solution for digital eyestrain and eyestrain-induced headaches. Ultimately, research and testing (including our own) have shown that these glasses probably have very little effect on those conditions.”
But … for me personally, these glasses have eliminated my eyestrain, just as my old antiglare glasses did. My eyes never hurt while I’m wearing these glasses and working on my laptop. If I take them off for even a few minutes, I start noticing my eyes straining, as if an invisible hand were lightly tugging at the backs of my eyeballs.
Is it possible that there’s a placebo effect at work on me? Of course.
But whatever the reason, these glasses seem to prevent eyestrain from taking hold—and make my screen-induced eyestrain vanish when I slide them on after initially forgetting to wear them.
I also must admit: I really like the way they look.
This is vanity of a supremely dorky and embarrassing variety, I know.
But picking frames is an especially prominent aesthetic choice. As George Costanza nervously and sagely said of glasses buying: “It’s a tough decision. I have to wear these every day. I’m deciding on a new face.”
So let me tell you about my new face.
The chunky frames are square-shaped, made from a sturdy and durable plastic. They might be described as hipster-ish. I have one pair in simple black, the other in a somewhat translucent sea green. (They come in more than 30 colors, if you would like something different.) I switch off based on what I’m wearing each day. They’re extremely comfortable, and they never slip or move around.
They’re also eminently noticeable. I’ve received many, many compliments on these glasses. Various colleagues have described them as “cute” or “cool.” Several people have told me they “like” or even “love” them.
However, that opinion is not universal.
Some of the most important people in my life—including my wife and my boss—think they make me look ridiculous.
When I told my wife that many of my colleagues have given me kind compliments about my cool new frames, she was blunt. “They’re lying to you,” she said. “Those glasses are not cool.”
A second source confirms her account.
“I really can’t take you seriously with those glasses on,” my boss said to me in one of our first meetings in my new glasses. But that quickly passed, and (I think) he takes me seriously enough now.
The lenses of these glasses are also a little weird on video calls. They’re a bit too reflective, so when my colleagues see my bespectacled face from certain angles, my glasses have a bit of an orange glare.
So, look: Does everyone think my cheap and cheerful glasses are cool? No. Is there convincing scientific evidence that they actually help with eyestrain? Absolutely not.
But I like the way they make me look. And I like the way they make my eyes feel when I look at a screen.
And in the end, that’s enough.
This article was edited by Maxine Builder and Catherine Kast.
