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

There's a nervous excitement. Apparent is the cold breath emanating from my competitors as they perform the "about to run" shuffle on the start line.

A swift movement of the hips.

I'm participating in my local 5km community parkrun and I'm focused. It's almost time...

Wait a second. I need to adjust my watch. The same goes for the runner beside me.

The person waiting expresses impatience. I won't start until… done! GPS ready, away I go.

Amidst the crowd, it's challenging to find a person without a smartwatch on it. And this extends beyond us participants who rely on them.

It's a booming, massive market. Companies like Apple Watch are prevalent, featuring an extensive range of diverse models to suit a spectrum of lifestyles. According to how advanced the watch you select, price tags can start from a hundred pounds to a significant investment.

"It makes me crazy, I'm unable to stop checking."

"It reassures me… It acts as a supporter encouraging me."

"Stop telling me I've experienced a restless night."

A handful of the reactions I've received from fellow device users when I question what they feel about theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My thoughts on mine? At this moment, frustrating. It's reporting I'm not hitting my target, causing me to question whether the foliage I'm running below are disrupting my satellite signal.

Millions of us strap these compact monitors onto our arms and wear them 24/7, apparently at ease with the fact they're constantly monitoring us.

A distant memory are the days when we used them exclusively to give us an estimation of our step count. Currently, they can analyse our sleep patterns, heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), our body battery.

It's difficult to find a health indicator they aren't designed to measure.

But can they do what they say they do? And are the data points we analyse a faithful picture of the truth? Do they improve our daily wellness, or do the multitude of measurements and motivational messages just increase our daily stresses?

Addiction or Aid?

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

While she appreciates how her device tracks her workouts, she finds some of its other capabilities "overwhelming" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a significant period.

Before she realised she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch kept telling her she was being insufficiently active enough. Later on, the watch insists her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I've got a six-month old, there's no point to be informed my sleep was poor," she says. "That fact is only too well."

Why doesn't she just take it off?

"I could, I suppose, but I've got this love-hate relationship with it," she says. "I love it for its exercise data, I sometimes question whether the myriad other functions it can now do is perhaps excessive for me."

How Do They Work?

Every device of smartwatch has its own novel way of measuring your health metrics and processing your data, but the most use sensors on the back of the watch.

They commonly shine small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can detect blood flow, detecting your heartbeat. More advanced devices detect changes in the skin conductance that runs through the skin to assess your recovery state.

A Fine Balance

A data scientist says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the ever-evolving tech could realistically save lives, "identifying issues before we feel unwell", it could also turn us the tracked into the "concerned but fine".

He points out that newer wearables can carry out tests like heart rhythm analysis, which regularly monitor how normal the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is abnormal electrical activity in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not automatically signal someone is on the verge of a heart attack, but it can give an advance notice they might be more at risk of a stroke in the future.

But how to understand these numbers is not straightforward. The expert fears that as more functions are incorporated, people may find it hard to fully comprehend their data.

"I remain sceptical that the ability to monitor so many things is such a good idea," he says.

A clinical psychologist focusing on patient behaviour agrees. A study into the effect of wearable tech on a cohort of cardiovascular patients suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced heightened worry and were "far more likely to use healthcare resources".

She observed a pattern with her patients - they noticed a alarming metric on their watch. They grew concerned. Their heart rate went up. They got more worried. They looked a second time, and their anxiety went up again.

"If we see numbers about ourselves that we lack context for then, naturally, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We look, we obsess - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."