Am I Hooked on This Wearable Device?

There's a nervous excitement. Apparent is the cold breath exhaled by my fellow runners as they execute the "pre-race" wiggle on the starting line.

A quick flick of the hips.

I'm lined up for my local weekly parkrun event and I'm serious. Three, two, one...

Oh, hang on. I have to start my device. As does the runner alongside me.

The person behind us sighs. I'm not moving until… there! GPS ready, and I'm running.

Amidst the crowd, it's hard to see a person without a wearable on it. And it's not just us runners who use them.

It's a booming, multi-billion pound industry. Brands like Garmin are prevalent, featuring an broad array of diverse devices to fit a range of needs. Depending on how high tech the watch you go for, costs can vary between a hundred pounds to thousands of pounds.

"It drives me insane, I'm unable to stop checking."

"It comforts me… It's like a companion guiding me."

"I wish it wouldn't say I've experienced a poor sleep."

Just some of the responses people have shared from fellow device users when I question what they feel about theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My feelings on mine? Right now, annoying. It's indicating I'm off pace, making me wonder whether the trees I'm running below are interfering with my GPS connection.

Millions of us strap these little monitors onto our arms and keep them on 24/7, seemingly unconcerned with the fact they're perpetually monitoring us.

Gone are the days when we depended on them solely to give us an estimation of our pedometer reading. Currently, they can track our sleep quality, stress levels, oxygen saturation, our body battery.

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

But are they able to do what they advertise? And are the data points we scrutinise a accurate representation of the truth? Do they improve our daily wellness, or do the multitude of readings and constant notifications just contribute to our sense of overwhelm?

A Complicated Bond

"I do get a a little fixated with mine," a wearer reveals.

While she loves how her device monitors her exercise, she finds some of its other features "daunting" at times - a feeling initially realised during a major life event.

Before she realised she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was failing to be active enough. Now, the watch keeps telling her she's had a restless night.

"I have a infant, I don't need to be told I'm tired," she says. "I'm acutely aware all too clearly."

Why doesn't she just stop wearing it?

"I suppose I could, theoretically, but I have this push-pull dynamic with it," she explains. "I value it for its workout tracking, I sometimes question whether all the other things it can now do is perhaps overkill for me."

Inside the Device

Every device of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of monitoring your bodily functions and analysing your data, but the most use optical sensors on the underside of the watch.

They usually shine minute LED lights onto your wrist which can detect pulsation, recording your BPM. More advanced devices analyse changes in the electrical current that flows through the skin to get an idea of your recovery state.

The Professional Viewpoint

A professor says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the ever-evolving tech could potentially save lives, "detecting disease before we notice anything", it could also turn us device users into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can conduct tests like heart rhythm analysis, which constantly monitor how healthy the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is erratic electrical activity in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not automatically signal someone is about to have a heart attack, but it can give an early warning they might be more vulnerable of a stroke in the future.

But how to make sense of these figures is complex. The expert worries that as further capabilities are introduced, people may struggle to fully understand their data.

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

A professor studying wearable tech concurs. A study into the effect of wearable tech on a specific group of cardiovascular patients suggested a significant portion 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 concerning reading on their watch. They became worried. Their BPM went up. They got increasingly anxious. They looked a second time, and their reading increased again.

"When people are presented with stats about ourselves that we don't really understand then, naturally, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We look, we check again - it becomes a vicious cycle."