Am I Hooked on This Smartwatch?

An atmosphere of feeling of anticipation. Visible is the frosty air emanating from my rivals as they execute the "pre-race" jiggle on the start line.

A quick twitch of the hips.

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

Oh, hang on. I must start my device. The same goes for the person next to me.

The person waiting sighs. I won't start until… yes! GPS ready, and I'm running.

In the mele, it's hard to spot a wrist without a wearable on it. And it's not just us participants who rely on them.

This is a explosive, massive market. Names like Garmin dominate, all offering an wide selection of diverse devices to suit a range of lifestyles. Depending on how high tech the device you select, price tags can vary between £100 to a small fortune.

"It makes me crazy, I can't switch off."

"It comforts me… It acts as a companion guiding me."

"Stop telling me about a poor sleep."

A handful of the reactions I've had from like-minded smartwatch wearers when I question what they think of theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My current opinion on my own device? Right now, frustrating. It's reporting I'm not hitting my target, causing me to question whether the overhead branches I'm running below are blocking my location tracking.

Countless individuals of us strap these compact devices onto our arms and wear them constantly, ostensibly comfortable with the fact they're perpetually tracking us.

Gone are the days when we used them exclusively to give us an idea of our pedometer reading. Today, they can analyse our nightly rest, blood pressure, heart rate variability (HRV), our recovery score.

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

But are they able to do what they advertise? And are the statistics we analyse a faithful picture of our actual health? Do they improve our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the plethora of readings and constant notifications just add to our everyday anxiety?

A Complicated Bond

"I do get a quite obsessed with mine," an individual reveals.

While she values how her device monitors her exercise, she finds some of its other functions "excessive" at times - a feeling initially realised during a pregnancy.

Prior to discovering she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was being insufficiently productive enough. Now, the watch frequently reports her she's had a restless night.

"I am caring for a infant, I don't need to be notified I've not slept," she says. "I know that only too well."

Couldn't she just take it off?

"It's possible, theoretically, but I have this complicated dynamic with it," she continues. "I appreciate it for its fitness insights, I sometimes question whether the additional features it can now do is possibly too much for me."

How Do They Work?

Each model of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of measuring your bodily functions and interpreting your data, but the most use sensors on the underside of the watch.

They typically shine small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can monitor pulsation, detecting your BPM. Higher-end devices measure changes in the electrical current that runs through the skin to gauge your nervous system activity.

The Professional Viewpoint

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

He points out that some of the latest wearables can perform tests like heart rhythm analysis, which regularly monitor how healthy the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is irregular signals in the heart causing an uneven pulse.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is about to have a cardiac event, but it can give an advance notice they might be more susceptible of a heart problem in the years to come.

But how to interpret these figures is complex. The expert worries that as more functions are added, people may not be able to fully comprehend their data.

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

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

She observed a vicious circle with her patients - they saw a alarming metric on their watch. They grew concerned. Their pulse went up. They got more worried. They looked a second time, and their heart rate rose further.

"If we see stats about ourselves that we don't really understand then, naturally, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we check again - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."