Could I Be Dependent on My Wearable Device?

An atmosphere of feeling of anticipation. Visible is the frosty air coming from my fellow runners as they do the "starting line" shuffle on the start line.

A rapid movement of the hips.

I'm participating in my local Saturday morning race and I'm focused. Three, two, one...

Hold on. I need to start my tracker. The same goes for the person next to me.

The person in the line tuts. I refuse to go until… done! GPS ready, away I go.

Amidst the crowd, it's difficult to see a wrist without a wearable on it. And it's not just us athletes who wear them.

This is a thriving, multi-billion pound market. Companies like Garmin dominate, featuring an extensive selection of various versions to fit a range of needs. According to how high tech the watch you select, price tags can start from £100 to a small fortune.

"It makes me crazy, I can't relax."

"It comforts me… It feels like a supporter encouraging me."

"Stop telling me about a bad night's sleep."

Just some of the comments people have shared from fellow smartwatch wearers when I inquire what they feel about theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My thoughts on my own device? Currently, frustrating. It's telling me I'm not hitting my target, causing me to question whether the overhead branches I'm passing under are disrupting my GPS connection.

Countless individuals of us attach these compact gadgets onto our wrists and keep them on 24/7, ostensibly comfortable with the fact they're perpetually tracking us.

Long past are the days when we used them only to give us an rough count of our pedometer reading. Currently, they can measure our nightly rest, blood pressure, heart rate variability (HRV), our VO2 max.

It's difficult to find a bodily function they fail to monitor.

But are they able to do what they advertise? And are the numbers we analyse a true reflection of our actual health? Do they improve our daily wellness, or do the multitude of metrics and cheerleading alerts just add to our everyday anxiety?

Addiction or Aid?

"I do get a a little obsessed with mine," a wearer reveals.

While she appreciates how her device monitors her exercise, she finds some of its other capabilities "overwhelming" at times - a feeling first discovered during a significant period.

Prior to discovering she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch kept telling her she was being insufficiently active enough. Now, the watch insists her she's had a restless night.

"I am caring for a six-month old, it's unnecessary for me to be notified I'm tired," she says. "I know that only too well."

Couldn't she just stop wearing it?

"I could, I suppose, but I'm in this love-hate relationship with it," she explains. "I love it for its fitness insights, I sometimes question whether all the other things it can now do is perhaps excessive for me."

Inside the Device

Every device of smartwatch has its own unique way of monitoring your health metrics and interpreting your data, but the most use sensors on the underside of the watch.

They commonly project minute LED lights onto your wrist which can observe pulsation, identifying your heartbeat. Higher-end devices analyse changes in the electrical current that passes over the skin to get an idea of your recovery state.

The Professional Viewpoint

A professor says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the continuously improving tech could potentially aid early diagnosis, "identifying issues before we feel unwell", it could also turn us the tracked into the "concerned but fine".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can conduct tests like heart rhythm analysis, which continuously monitor how normal the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is erratic signals in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is about to have a cardiac event, but it can give an early warning they might be more vulnerable of a stroke in the future.

But how to understand these readings is not straightforward. The expert concerns that as additional features are introduced, people may not be able to fully contextualise their data.

"I have some doubts that having the capacity to monitor so many metrics is such a positive development," he says.

A professor studying patient behaviour echoes this sentiment. A study into the effect of wearable tech on a specific group of individuals with health issues suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced heightened worry and were "had a higher tendency to use doctor's time".

She observed a vicious circle with her patients - they spotted a concerning reading on their watch. They became worried. Their pulse went up. They got even more concerned. They re-examined the data, and their reading increased again.

"Upon viewing stats about ourselves that we lack context for then, of course, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we re-check - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."