Is It Possible I'm Hooked on This Wearable Device?

A sense of feeling of anticipation. Apparent is the cold breath emanating from my rivals as they do the "pre-race" shuffle on the starting line.

A quick twitch of the hips.

I'm participating in my local Saturday morning race and I mean business. It's almost time...

Hold on. I must start my tracker. The same goes for the person alongside me.

The person waiting sighs. I'm not moving until… done! Connection established, and I'm running.

During the scramble, it's difficult to see a person without a smartwatch on it. And this extends beyond us athletes who use them.

This is a thriving, massive market. Companies like Garmin are prevalent, all offering an broad array of different versions to cater to a variety of lifestyles. Based on how feature-packed the watch you go for, price tags can range from an affordable sum to thousands of pounds.

"I find it infuriating, I can't switch off."

"It comforts me… It's like a companion encouraging me."

"I wish it wouldn't say about a restless night."

A small sample of the reactions I've received from like-minded device users when I ask what they feel about theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My current opinion on my own device? At this moment, annoying. It's reporting I'm not hitting my target, leading me to doubt whether the foliage I'm passing under are disrupting my location tracking.

Countless individuals of us strap these small monitors onto our wrists and wear them all day and night, ostensibly at ease with the fact they're constantly recording us.

Gone are the days when we relied on them only to give us an idea of our pedometer reading. Today, they can track our sleep quality, heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), our body battery.

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

But do they do what they claim to do? And are the statistics we scrutinise a accurate representation of reality? Do they improve our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the avalanche of metrics and motivational messages just increase our sense of overwhelm?

Addiction or Aid?

"I find myself getting a bit obsessed with mine," one user admits.

While she loves how her device records her runs, she finds some of its other features "daunting" at times - a feeling initially realised during a major life event.

Before she realised she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was not being energetic enough. Now, the watch insists her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I have a infant, I don't need to be notified my sleep was poor," she says. "I'm acutely aware all too clearly."

Couldn't she just remove it?

"I suppose I could, I suppose, but I'm in this complicated dynamic with it," she says. "I appreciate it for its fitness insights, but I'm unsure whether the additional features it can now do is perhaps overkill for me."

Inside the Device

Every device of smartwatch has its own unique way of measuring your vitals and analysing your data, but the most use optical sensors on the underside of the watch.

They typically shine small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can monitor capillary action, recording your heartbeat. Sophisticated devices analyse changes in the electrical current that runs through the skin to get an idea of your nervous system activity.

A Fine Balance

A professor says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the continuously improving tech could realistically save lives, "spotting abnormalities before we feel unwell", it could also turn us the tracked into the "worried well".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can perform tests like medical-grade monitoring, which continuously monitor how healthy the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is abnormal signals in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not automatically signal someone is about to have a heart attack, but it can give an early warning they might be more at risk of a blood clot in the years to come.

But how to interpret these readings is complicated. The expert concerns that as further capabilities are introduced, people may struggle to fully understand their data.

"I remain sceptical that having the capacity to monitor so many things is such a beneficial thing," he says.

A health researcher studying wearable tech concurs. Research into the influence of wearable tech on a cohort of individuals with health issues suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced heightened worry and were "far more likely to use doctor's time".

She noted a vicious circle with her patients - they noticed a concerning reading on their watch. They became worried. Their heart rate went up. They got more worried. They re-examined the data, and their anxiety rose further.

"When people are presented with data about ourselves that we lack context for then, naturally, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We check, we obsess - it becomes a feedback loop."