Is It Possible I'm Hooked on My Smartwatch?

An atmosphere of building tension. Visible is the frosty air exhaled by my competitors as they perform the "pre-race" wiggle on the start line.

A rapid flick of the hips.

I'm lined up for my local 5km community parkrun and I'm serious. Three, two, one...

Oh, hang on. I have to adjust my watch. So does the person beside me.

The person waiting expresses impatience. I won't start until… yes! Signal acquired, away I go.

During the scramble, it's challenging to spot a person without a fitness tracker on it. And this extends beyond us runners who rely on them.

This is a booming, massive market. Names like Garmin dominate, featuring an broad selection of diverse models to cater to a variety of needs. Based on how advanced the model you choose, costs can vary between a hundred pounds to thousands of pounds.

"I find it infuriating, I'm unable to relax."

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

"I wish it wouldn't say about a poor sleep."

A handful of the responses people have shared from like-minded device users when I inquire what they their opinion is on theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My thoughts on mine? Right now, irritating. It's indicating my speed is wrong, leading me to doubt whether the overhead branches along my route are disrupting my location tracking.

Countless individuals of us fasten these small monitors onto our arms and keep them on 24/7, ostensibly comfortable with the fact they're perpetually recording us.

A distant memory are the days when we depended on them exclusively to give us an idea of our step count. Now, they can track our sleep quality, heart rate, glucose levels, our VO2 max.

It's a challenge to find a physical metric they fail to monitor.

But do they do what they advertise? And are the data points we analyse a true reflection of reality? Do they enhance our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the avalanche of metrics and constant notifications just increase our daily stresses?

A Complicated Bond

"I find myself getting a bit obsessed with mine," an individual reveals.

While she values how her device records her exercise, she finds some of its other capabilities "overwhelming" at times - a feeling initially realised during a significant period.

Prior to discovering she could change its configuration, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was being insufficiently active enough. Later on, the watch keeps telling her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I have a young baby, it's unnecessary for me to be informed I've not slept," she says. "I'm acutely aware only too well."

Why doesn't she just remove it?

"I could, I suppose, but I'm in this push-pull dynamic with it," she continues. "I value it for its exercise data, I just wonder whether the additional features it can now do is possibly excessive for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Different brands of smartwatch has its own unique way of measuring your bodily functions and interpreting your data, but the vast bulk use optical sensors on the reverse of the watch.

They typically project minute LED lights onto your arm which can detect capillary action, identifying your heartbeat. Higher-end devices detect changes in the skin conductance that flows through the skin to assess your recovery state.

A Fine Balance

A data scientist says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the continuously improving tech could realistically aid early diagnosis, "detecting disease before we show symptoms", it could also turn us the tracked into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that newer wearables can perform tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which regularly monitor how healthy the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is erratic electrical activity in the heart causing an uneven pulse.

This does not automatically signal someone is about to have a heart attack, but it can give an advance notice they might be more vulnerable of a stroke in the future.

But how to interpret these readings is not straightforward. The expert fears that as more functions are added, people may find it hard to fully contextualise their data.

"I have some doubts that the ability to monitor so much data is such a positive development," he says.

A clinical psychologist specialising in cardiology concurs. A study into the effect of wearable tech on a set of individuals with health issues suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced heightened worry and were "more inclined to use doctor's time".

She identified a pattern with her patients - they spotted a alarming metric on their watch. They became worried. Their pulse rose. They got even more concerned. They looked a second time, and their reading rose further.

"Upon viewing numbers about ourselves that we don't really understand then, naturally, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We check, we re-check - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."