Am I Addicted to My Wearable Device?

There's a feeling of anticipation. Apparent is the cold breath coming from my fellow runners as they perform the "about to run" shuffle on the starting line.

A rapid movement of the hips.

I'm at my local Saturday morning race and I'm focused. Three, two, one...

Oh, hang on. I must sort my watch. So does the person alongside me.

The person waiting sighs. I'm not moving until… done! Signal acquired, I'm off.

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

We're witnessing a explosive, massive sector. Brands like Apple Watch are prevalent, all offering an broad array of different versions to cater to a variety of needs. Based on how advanced the device you choose, price tags can range from a hundred pounds to thousands of pounds.

"It drives me insane, I can't stop checking."

"It comforts me… It's like a friend supporting me."

"Stop telling me I've experienced a poor sleep."

Just some of the comments I've received from fellow tracker enthusiasts when I inquire what they feel about theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My feelings on my own device? Currently, irritating. It's telling me I'm off pace, causing me to question whether the foliage along my route are disrupting my location tracking.

A vast number of us strap these little monitors onto our arms and keep them on all day and night, ostensibly comfortable with the fact they're continuously monitoring us.

Gone are the days when we relied on them solely to give us an idea of our step count. Currently, they can measure our sleep quality, blood pressure, glucose levels, our VO2 max.

It's a challenge to find a health indicator they fail to monitor.

But can they do what they advertise? And are the data points we scrutinise a faithful picture of our actual health? Do they improve our overall health, or do the plethora of measurements and cheerleading alerts just contribute to our daily stresses?

A Complicated Bond

"I find myself getting a quite fixated with mine," one user confesses.

While she loves how her device monitors her runs, she finds some of its other features "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 failing to be active enough. In a new phase, the watch keeps telling her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I've got a six-month old, I don't need to be notified I've not slept," she says. "That fact is only too well."

Is it not possible to just stop wearing it?

"I suppose I could, perhaps, but I have this complicated dynamic with it," she says. "I value it for its workout tracking, I sometimes question whether the myriad other functions it can now do is perhaps excessive for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Different brands of smartwatch has its own unique way of measuring your health metrics and interpreting your data, but the most use detectors on the reverse of the watch.

They usually shine small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can detect blood flow, identifying your pulse rate. More advanced devices measure changes in the bioimpedance that passes over the skin to assess your nervous system activity.

The Professional Viewpoint

One expert says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the rapidly advancing tech could realistically prevent illness, "spotting abnormalities before we notice anything", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can conduct tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which constantly monitor how normal the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is erratic signals in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is about to have a heart attack, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more vulnerable of a heart problem in the future.

But how to make sense of these figures is complicated. The expert concerns that as more functions are incorporated, people may not be able to fully comprehend their data.

"I'm not entirely convinced that having the capacity to monitor so much data is such a good idea," he says.

A clinical psychologist focusing on cardiology concurs. Research into the effect of wearable tech on a set of cardiovascular patients suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced greater stress and were "far more likely to use doctor's time".

She observed a vicious circle with her patients - they noticed a worrying figure on their watch. They felt anxious. Their heart rate increased. They got even more concerned. They checked again, and their heart rate increased 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 look, we obsess - it becomes a feedback loop."