Is It Possible I'm Dependent on My Wearable Device?

An atmosphere of building tension. I can see the chilled vapour coming from my rivals as they do the "about to run" shuffle on the starting line.

A swift flick of the hips.

I'm participating in my local Saturday morning race and I mean business. It's almost time...

Wait a second. I have to sort my device. As does the person next to me.

The person behind us sighs. I won't start until… yes! GPS ready, away I go.

Amidst the crowd, it's difficult to see a person without a wearable on it. And it's not just us athletes who rely on them.

This is a explosive, massive sector. Brands like Samsung Galaxy dominate, featuring an wide array of different devices to fit a spectrum of lifestyles. According to how feature-packed the device you choose, costs can vary between £100 to a small fortune.

"I find it infuriating, it's impossible to stop checking."

"It comforts me… It's like a supporter encouraging me."

"I wish it wouldn't say I've had a bad night's sleep."

Just some of the responses people have shared from other tracker enthusiasts when I inquire what they feel about theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My feelings on mine? Right now, frustrating. It's reporting my speed is wrong, making me wonder whether the overhead branches along my route are blocking my location tracking.

Countless individuals of us fasten these small devices onto our wrists and use them constantly, ostensibly at ease with the fact they're constantly tracking us.

A distant memory are the days when we used them exclusively to give us an idea of our daily steps. Currently, they can measure our nightly rest, blood pressure, heart rate variability (HRV), our recovery score.

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

But can they do what they advertise? And are the numbers we obsess over a accurate representation of our actual health? Do they boost our daily wellness, or do the plethora of measurements and motivational messages just contribute to our daily stresses?

A Love-Hate Relationship

"I do get a bit obsessed with mine," an individual confesses.

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

Prior to discovering she could change its configuration, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was failing to be productive enough. Now, the watch keeps telling her she's had a bad night's sleep.

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

Why doesn't she just take it off?

"I suppose I could, perhaps, but I have this complicated dynamic with it," she says. "I value it for its fitness insights, I sometimes question whether the additional features it can now do is perhaps too much for me."

How Do They Work?

Each model of smartwatch has its own unique way of monitoring your health metrics and analysing your data, but the vast bulk use sensors on the back of the watch.

They typically project small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can monitor blood flow, identifying your heartbeat. Higher-end devices detect changes in the bioimpedance that passes over the skin to assess your stress levels.

The Professional Viewpoint

A data scientist says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the ever-evolving tech could realistically prevent illness, "detecting disease before we show symptoms", it could also turn us device users into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can perform tests like medical-grade monitoring, which regularly monitor how normal the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is abnormal electrical activity in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

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

But how to interpret these numbers is complicated. The expert concerns that as further capabilities are incorporated, people may not be able to fully contextualise their data.

"I remain sceptical that the ability to monitor so many metrics is such a good idea," he says.

A professor focusing on wearable tech concurs. Research into the effect of wearable tech on a set of cardiovascular patients suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced increased anxiety and were "more inclined to use healthcare resources".

She observed a vicious circle with her patients - they spotted a worrying figure on their watch. They grew concerned. Their pulse increased. They got even more concerned. They checked again, and their reading increased again.

"If we see numbers about ourselves that we lack context for then, naturally, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we re-check - it becomes a feedback loop."