Could I Be Dependent on My Smartwatch?

There's a feeling of anticipation. Visible is the cold breath emanating from my rivals as they execute the "about to run" shuffle on the beginning point.

A swift twitch 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. As does the guy next to me.

The person waiting expresses impatience. I refuse to go until… there! Signal acquired, away I go.

During the scramble, it's challenging to spot a wrist without a wearable on it. And this isn't only us participants who wear them.

It's a explosive, massive sector. Companies like Garmin dominate, featuring an broad selection of various models to cater to a range of lifestyles. Based on how advanced the model you go for, prices can start from a hundred pounds to a small fortune.

"I find it infuriating, it's impossible to relax."

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

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

A small sample of the reactions I've had from other device users when I question what they think of theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My feelings on my own device? At this moment, annoying. It's reporting my speed is wrong, causing me to question whether the trees I'm passing under are disrupting my satellite signal.

A vast number of us strap these compact monitors onto our arms and wear them constantly, seemingly comfortable with the fact they're perpetually monitoring us.

Long past are the days when we depended on them exclusively to give us an estimation of our pedometer reading. Now, they can track our sleep quality, stress levels, glucose levels, 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 faithful picture of the truth? Do they boost our daily wellness, or do the multitude of metrics and constant notifications just contribute to our daily stresses?

A Love-Hate Relationship

"I find myself getting a quite fixated with mine," a wearer reveals.

While she values how her device tracks her runs, she finds some of its other features "excessive" at times - a feeling first discovered during a significant period.

Before she realised she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was not being active enough. Later on, the watch insists her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I am caring for a six-month old, it's unnecessary for me to be informed I've not slept," she says. "I'm acutely aware all too clearly."

Why doesn't she just take it off?

"It's possible, I suppose, but I have this push-pull dynamic with it," she explains. "I value it for its exercise data, but I'm unsure whether all the other things it can now do is maybe overkill for me."

How Do They Work?

Each model of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of tracking your health metrics and processing your data, but the vast bulk use optical sensors on the reverse of the watch.

They commonly shine small, green LED lights onto your skin which can monitor pulsation, recording your heartbeat. Higher-end devices analyse changes in the electrical current that passes over the skin to gauge your recovery state.

The Professional Viewpoint

A data scientist says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the rapidly advancing tech could realistically aid early diagnosis, "detecting disease before we notice anything", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can perform tests like medical-grade monitoring, which continuously monitor how stable the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is irregular signals in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

This does not automatically signal someone is about to have a cardiac event, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more vulnerable of a stroke in the years to come.

But how to understand these figures is complicated. The expert concerns that as further capabilities are incorporated, people may find it hard to fully comprehend their data.

"I remain sceptical that having the capacity to monitor so much data is such a good idea," he says.

A professor specialising in patient behaviour echoes this sentiment. A study into the influence of wearable tech on a specific group of cardiovascular patients suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced greater stress and were "had a higher tendency to use doctor's time".

She identified a pattern with her patients - they noticed a concerning reading on their watch. They grew concerned. Their heart rate increased. They got even more concerned. They re-examined the data, and their anxiety went up again.

"If we see numbers about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, of course, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We check, we check again - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."