🔗 Share this article

An atmosphere of building tension. Apparent is the chilled vapour exhaled by my competitors as they do the "starting line" wiggle on the starting line.

A rapid flick of the hips.

I'm lined up for my local 5km community parkrun and I'm serious. The countdown begins...

Wait a second. I must sort my watch. So does the person next to me.

The person in the line expresses impatience. I refuse to go until… done! GPS ready, and I'm running.

In the mele, it's difficult to see a person without a wearable on it. And it's not just us athletes who use them.

It's a thriving, multi-billion pound industry. Brands like Samsung Galaxy are prevalent, all offering an broad selection of different devices to cater to a range of lifestyles. Based on how high tech the model you go for, costs can vary between £100 to a significant investment.

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

"It provides solace… It feels like a companion encouraging me."

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

A handful of the comments I've had from fellow tracker enthusiasts when I question what they think of theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My current opinion on my own device? Currently, irritating. It's reporting I'm off pace, making me wonder whether the trees I'm passing under are interfering with my location tracking.

A vast number of us strap these compact devices onto our wrists and keep them on all day and night, ostensibly unconcerned with the fact they're constantly monitoring us.

A distant memory are the days when we depended on them exclusively to give us an estimation of our pedometer reading. Currently, they can measure our sleep patterns, stress levels, glucose levels, our recovery score.

It's a challenge to find a physical metric they aren't designed to measure.

But do they do what they claim to do? And are the data points we analyse a true reflection of our actual health? Do they enhance our daily wellness, or do the avalanche of metrics and constant notifications just contribute to our everyday anxiety?

A Complicated Bond

"I become a bit fixated with mine," a wearer admits.

While she appreciates how her device records her workouts, she finds some of its other capabilities "daunting" at times - a feeling first discovered during a pregnancy.

Until she found out she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was failing to be energetic enough. In a new phase, the watch insists her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I've got a young baby, there's no point to be told my sleep was poor," she says. "I'm acutely aware only too well."

Why doesn't she just take it off?

"It's possible, theoretically, but I'm in this complicated dynamic with it," she continues. "I value it for its exercise data, I sometimes question whether all the other things it can now do is perhaps overkill for me."

Inside the Device

Different brands of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of monitoring your bodily functions and interpreting your data, but the majority use detectors on the back of the watch.

They commonly shine minute LED lights onto your arm which can detect pulsation, identifying your pulse rate. More advanced devices detect changes in the electrical current that runs through the skin to get an idea of your stress levels.

The Professional Viewpoint

A data scientist says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the ever-evolving tech could actually aid early diagnosis, "spotting abnormalities before we notice anything", it could also turn us device users into the "worried well".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can conduct tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which regularly monitor how normal the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is erratic electrical activity in the heart causing an uneven pulse.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is imminently going to suffer a heart attack, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more susceptible of a stroke in the future.

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

"I'm not entirely convinced that being able to monitor so many things is such a beneficial thing," he says.

A professor focusing on wearable tech concurs. A study into the impact of wearable tech on a specific group of heart condition patients suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced heightened worry and were "far more likely to use healthcare resources".

She observed a cycle with her patients - they saw a alarming metric on their watch. They felt anxious. Their pulse rose. They got increasingly anxious. They looked a second time, and their heart rate increased again.

"Upon viewing stats about ourselves that we don't really understand then, of course, we are going to seek clarification," the psychologist says. "We check, we check again - it becomes a feedback loop."