Is It Possible I'm Hooked on This Smartwatch?

An atmosphere of feeling of anticipation. I can see the chilled vapour coming from my fellow runners as they do the "starting line" wiggle on the starting line.

A rapid flick of the hips.

I'm lined up for my local Saturday morning race and I'm focused. The countdown begins...

Hold on. I have to adjust my device. As does the guy next to me.

The person behind us sighs. I won't start until… yes! Signal acquired, and I'm running.

In the mele, it's challenging to spot a arm without a wearable on it. And this isn't only us athletes who wear them.

This is a booming, massive sector. Brands like Samsung Galaxy are prevalent, featuring an broad selection of different devices to cater to a variety of needs. Depending on how advanced the watch you go for, costs can start from a hundred pounds to a small fortune.

"It drives me insane, it's impossible to stop checking."

"It provides solace… It acts as a friend guiding me."

"Please don't notify me I've experienced a bad night's sleep."

Just some of the reactions I've had from like-minded device users when I ask what they feel about theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My current opinion on mine? At this moment, irritating. It's indicating I'm not hitting my target, leading me to doubt whether the overhead branches I'm passing under are interfering with my location tracking.

A vast number of us fasten these compact monitors onto our wrists and wear them all day and night, seemingly comfortable with the fact they're constantly recording us.

A distant memory are the days when we relied on them exclusively to give us an idea of our step count. Today, they can track our sleep quality, stress levels, heart rate variability (HRV), our recovery score.

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

But can they do what they advertise? And are the statistics we scrutinise a true reflection of our actual health? Do they improve our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the avalanche of metrics and motivational messages just add to our everyday anxiety?

Addiction or Aid?

"I become a quite obsessed with mine," a wearer reveals.

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

Until she found out she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was being insufficiently productive enough. Later on, the watch keeps telling her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I've got a six-month old, it's unnecessary for me to be notified I'm tired," she says. "I'm acutely aware perfectly well."

Couldn't she just take it off?

"I could, perhaps, but I have this complicated dynamic with it," she continues. "I value it for its workout tracking, I sometimes question whether the additional features it can now do is maybe too much for me."

How Do They Work?

Different brands of smartwatch has its own novel way of monitoring your bodily functions and interpreting your data, but the majority use optical sensors on the underside of the watch.

They commonly project tiny, coloured LED lights onto your wrist which can detect capillary action, recording your pulse rate. Sophisticated devices measure changes in the skin conductance that flows through the skin to assess your nervous system activity.

Expert Perspectives

A data scientist says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the continuously improving tech could potentially save lives, "spotting abnormalities before we feel unwell", it could also turn us the tracked into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that newer wearables can carry out tests like medical-grade monitoring, which continuously monitor how stable the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is abnormal electrical activity in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is imminently going to suffer a cardiac event, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more vulnerable of a stroke in the long term.

But how to interpret these figures is complicated. The expert worries that as additional features are added, people may find it hard to fully understand their data.

"I have some doubts that being able to monitor so much data is such a good idea," he says.

A professor studying patient behaviour agrees. A study into the impact of wearable tech on a set of heart condition patients suggested a noticeable percentage 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 saw a worrying figure on their watch. They grew concerned. Their BPM increased. They got more worried. They looked a second time, and their reading went up again.

"If we see stats about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, understandably, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We check, we check again - it becomes a vicious cycle."