🔗 Share this article

An atmosphere of feeling of anticipation. Visible is the cold breath coming from my competitors as they perform the "pre-race" jiggle on the beginning point.

A quick movement of the hips.

I'm lined up for my local 5km community parkrun and I mean business. Three, two, one...

Wait a second. I have to adjust my watch. So does the guy beside me.

The person waiting tuts. I won't start until… there! Connection established, and I'm running.

During the scramble, 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 thriving, multi-billion dollar market. Brands like Apple Watch dominate, featuring an wide array of different models to cater to a range of lifestyles. Depending on how feature-packed the watch you go for, costs can start from £100 to a small fortune.

"It makes me crazy, I'm unable to stop checking."

"It provides solace… It's like a supporter supporting me."

"Stop telling me about a restless night."

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

The Data Dilemma

My current opinion on mine? At this moment, irritating. It's reporting my speed is wrong, making me wonder whether the trees I'm passing under are interfering with my satellite signal.

Countless individuals of us fasten these compact gadgets onto our arms and wear them all day and night, ostensibly at ease with the fact they're perpetually monitoring us.

Long past are the days when we relied on them only to give us an idea of our step count. Now, they can measure our sleep patterns, stress levels, oxygen saturation, our VO2 max.

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

But do they do what they claim to do? And are the statistics we scrutinise a accurate representation of our actual health? Do they enhance our daily wellness, or do the multitude of metrics and constant notifications just contribute to our daily stresses?

A Complicated Bond

"I become a quite preoccupied with mine," one user reveals.

While she loves how her device tracks her exercise, she finds some of its other functions "overwhelming" at times - a feeling first discovered during a pregnancy.

Prior to discovering she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was not being productive enough. In a new phase, the watch keeps telling her she's had a bad night's sleep.

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

Couldn't she just remove it?

"I suppose I could, theoretically, but I've got this push-pull dynamic with it," she continues. "I love it for its fitness insights, I sometimes question whether all the other things it can now do is possibly excessive for me."

How Do They Work?

Different brands of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of tracking your vitals and analysing your data, but the vast bulk use optical sensors on the underside of the watch.

They usually shine small, green LED lights onto your skin which can observe pulsation, detecting your heartbeat. Sophisticated devices detect changes in the electrical current that flows through the skin to get an idea of your stress levels.

Expert Perspectives

A data scientist says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the ever-evolving tech could actually aid early diagnosis, "detecting disease before we feel unwell", it could also turn us device users into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can perform tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which regularly monitor how healthy the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is irregular electrical activity 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 advance notice they might be more susceptible of a stroke in the long term.

But how to interpret these numbers is not straightforward. The expert worries that as more functions are added, people may not be able to fully comprehend their data.

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

A health researcher focusing on wearable tech concurs. Her work into the effect of wearable tech on a set of individuals with health issues suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced heightened worry and were "had a higher tendency to use doctor's time".

She observed a vicious circle with her patients - they spotted a alarming metric on their watch. They grew concerned. Their pulse went up. They got increasingly anxious. They looked a second time, and their reading increased again.

"Upon viewing data about ourselves that we lack context for then, understandably, we are going to seek clarification," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we re-check - it becomes a feedback loop."