I always get annoyed with the cool girls or random middle-aged men on the New York City subway who wear sunglasses inside. I get that we access the subway from the street so you were most likely wearing sunglasses but can’t you tell how the light changed when you went underground – prompting you to release your shades of their responsibility? I have a few friends that claim when they are only going a few stops away, they keep them on. Because you know, God forbid they’d have to spend one second taking them off and another second to put them back on. But, I digress. 

Or do they forget they’re wearing them, like my sister did the other day, twenty minutes into our grocery shopping? Maybe their sunglasses are the only prescriptive eyewear they mistakenly had on them, and wearing them inside helps them to see more clearly? Or is there some other scientific, health-related answer to my burning question – why do people still wear sunglasses inside? 

To get a better idea of that, I used a lifeline – Google. Now I know for a fact that some people do it because it looks cool. Wearing them as a form of status and “sophistication” as they show off a flashy designer logo. To all those people, I’ll forever be rolling my eyes. But to the people who wear sunglasses indoors because of a light sensitivity or blindness, I apologize for being so brash. 

Some people have medical conditions in which light causes pain or discomfort to the head or eye. This is called photophobia. For these people, shielding their eyes from light could limit migraines, queasiness and dry eyes. 

However, not all light is bad. And when you wear sunglasses indoors you block out all the light. Similar to muscles getting familiar with exercises and plateauing at a certain point, when your eyes have adapted to the dark – due to indoor sunglasses wearing – your eyes get coddled. Eventually, even the dimmest of lights could be painfully sensitive to your eyes. 

So, word to the wise: if you wear sunglasses indoors to be cool, stop. If you wear it because you have photophobia, figure out what type of light you’re sensitive too and opt for blocking filter glasses instead.