Glasses wearers 'older and geekier'

Those who wear glasses are perceived to be older and tend to be regarded as “geeky”.

On average, glasses-wearers were put at 3.3 years older than they actually were in the study, while those aged 45 and over were thought to be five years older.

The research was based on a survey of 4,000 people, who were split into two groups.

The first group was given 10 pictures of people with glasses and asked to guess their ages and discuss their personal attributes. The second group was given 10 pictures of the same people without glasses and asked the same questions.

The results showed a difference in perceived ages but also found that those who wore glasses were a fifth less likely to be seen as confident and were more likely to be described as “geeky”.