[notmytarga]

I can't top those pictures. But I can add some medical detail about presbyopia, which is age related worsening of near-vision. Presbycusis is age related hearing deterioration.

A few things that haven't been mentioned:
It is worse in low light - because the iris dilates exposing more of the lens which isn't focusing adequately. Pinhole cameras don't need a lens. Improving illumination can help a lot.

Taking off the glasses you use to see distance clearly will remove those concave lenses - effectively adding power - try that when reading. Astigmatism might make this less effective.

Lasik surgery permanently changes the refractive power of your cornea - so you can't take off your distance glasses to read anymore because you aren't wearing any. That is why they like to do one eye less to do 'monovision'

I was told by an optometrist that I would have been less likely to need glasses starting in college if I had worn weak reading glasses during all those hours of studying. Makes sense because - - reading and close work require your eyes to converge on the object and the extraocular muscles pull the eye into a long shape by millimeters. This elongation requires the negative diopter (concave) lenses to focus the image on the retina. I recall Chinese schools having pupils periodically press on their closed eyes to prevent nearsightedness. I can imagine this working. Vision exercises and such may be too late for me however.

The state of the art for this problem is a 'clear lens exchange' with multifocal lenses like ReZoom. If you are having cataract surgery these upgraded lenses will add $3K to the bill for each eye. My coworker wore both contacts and glasses together and still had bad vision - with these new lenses she has clear near and far uncorrected vision and is quite happy.