The Contact Lens Institute (CLI) unveiled new consumer research at Vision Expo West during the main stage panel “Shifting Focus: How the Next Generation Sees Contact Lens Wear and Eye Care,” featuring Harbir Sian, OD; Jenn Seymour, LDO, NCLE-AC, ABO-AC; Andrew Bruce, LDO, ABOM, NCLEM, FCLSA; and Jade Coats, OD, FAAO.

The conversation explored significant opportunities to increase contact lens adoption among Gen Z, while also highlighting distinct purchase drivers shaping decision-making across generations.

Across all generations, affordability, convenience, and speed of obtaining products ranked as the top purchase drivers. However, Gen Z and millennials placed greater emphasis on factors such as brand authenticity, personalization, and social responsibility. In particular, social responsibility showed the widest gap between Gen Z and Gen X respondents—an 18-point difference.

When asked about eyecare practices, about half of Gen Z participants cited inclusive culture (52%), environmental responsibility (49%), and doctor diversity (47%) as highly important. For eyecare products, sustainability (46%) and inclusivity (44%) were leading considerations.

EB connected with the panel following the discussion to gain insights into how ECPs can apply this data to their own practice.

Eyecare Business: Do you have any advice for ECPs who struggle with personalizing each exam when they are often pressured to fit in as many patients as possible in a day?

Dr. Sian: We should always be evolving any growing and changing our practices to serve our patients better. How we do that is by understanding their needs and things they care about. It's going to require a little bit of work groundwork on our part to lay some foundations the same way we have systems in place if we’re treating myopia—what’s the next step, how we bring it up to patients. This is another one of those types of things: How do we integrate the fact that different generations think differently, and how do we provide different options? Rather than something I say to a patient on the fly, it’s about building that groundwork.

Seymour: It takes the whole office to make that happen. Spending time in the room, you’ve only got so many minutes. You’ve got to trust and educate the entire office to have its portion of the information. You may have seven minutes the room, but we know that that how we treat that full 16 to 20 minutes creates more value for the patient.

EB: How can ECPs share these social responsibility initiatives without seeming performative?

Dr. Coats: One thing that someone could do without having to change the way they see patients is at the front desk: Here's our recycling bin; it can be strategically located in the optical. Let’s have a conversation about how we work with local Lions clubs. When they learn that we donate some of our contact lenses to domestic violence shelters—we educate people that we'll take your old ones; we're not going to throw them away. They’re like, challenge accepted! They will not disappoint their doctor, and they’re coming in quarterly to donate and seeing what else we have to offer.

If a practitioner were to ignore all of this data, what they’re going to see is a dip in young people. By ignoring this data, you might be pushing away an entire generation of patients. It’s a call to action for doctors to get involved with your community and be vocal about it.  

Bruce: Starting the conversation when the patient first walks in the door, empowering everybody in the office to be somewhat knowledgeable, communicating the steps you take as a brand to be socially responsible and fulfill the requirements of what’s important to the consumer. If recycling is important to someone, they will do it. We’ve got to make it known—it’s easy, just bring your contacts in, we recycle them, and the manufacturers take them back.

EB: Looking ahead, how do you see these generational insights shaping the broader eyecare landscape—not just in contact lenses, but in overall patient engagement?

Dr. Sian: We shouldn’t just look at this as “just Gen Z cares about this.” There’s a clear trend, a larger proportion of our population caring about social responsibly and diversity. It’s unlikely the pendulum is going to all of a sudden swing in the other direction; it’s going to increase or stay where it is. It’s about time that we all as professionals start to understand the data and act on the data—not to overwhelm anybody but start to build your foundations of how you talk to your patients based on this data.