🔗 Share this article Am I Hooked on My Smartwatch? Many runners catch themselves checking their watches innumerable times during a race. A sense of building tension. I can see the frosty air exhaled by my fellow runners as they perform the "starting line" shuffle on the starting line. A rapid movement of the hips. I'm at my local Saturday morning race and I'm focused. The countdown begins... Oh, hang on. I have to start my watch. As does the person alongside me. The person waiting sighs. I'm not moving until… yes! Connection established, I'm off. During the scramble, it's hard to spot a person without a wearable on it. And it's not just us runners who rely on them. It's a explosive, multi-billion dollar market. Brands like Garmin dominate, featuring an wide selection of various models to fit a range of lifestyles. According to how feature-packed the model you go for, costs can vary between an affordable sum to thousands of pounds. "It makes me crazy, I'm unable to switch off." "It comforts me… It acts as a supporter encouraging me." "Stop telling me about a poor sleep." A handful of the responses people have shared from like-minded tracker enthusiasts when I inquire what they feel about theirs. Many users are frequently questioning whether the data on their watch is correct. The Data Dilemma My thoughts on mine? Currently, annoying. It's reporting my speed is wrong, causing me to question whether the trees I'm running below are disrupting my GPS connection. A vast number of us fasten these small monitors onto our wrists and keep them on constantly, ostensibly comfortable with the fact they're perpetually tracking us. A distant memory are the days when we used them only to give us an estimation of our pedometer reading. Today, they can analyse our sleep patterns, blood pressure, heart rate variability (HRV), our recovery score. It's difficult to find a physical metric they aren't designed to measure. But can they do what they say they do? And are the data points we scrutinise a accurate representation of the truth? Do they enhance our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the multitude of readings and motivational messages just add to our daily stresses? Some users find the multitude of functions on their smartwatches to be "excessive" at times. A Love-Hate Relationship "I do get a a little obsessed with mine," one user reveals. While she values how her device records her exercise, she finds some of its other capabilities "daunting" at times - a feeling initially realised during a major life event. Prior to discovering she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch kept telling her she was not being productive enough. Later on, the watch keeps telling her she's had a bad night's sleep. "I have a six-month old, there's no point to be informed I've not slept," she says. "That fact is perfectly well." Why doesn't she just take it off? "I suppose I could, I suppose, but I've got this push-pull dynamic with it," she says. "I appreciate it for its fitness insights, I just wonder whether the additional features it can now do is perhaps too much for me." How Do They Work? Every device of smartwatch has its own novel way of monitoring your bodily functions and interpreting your data, but the majority use optical sensors on the underside of the watch. They typically project tiny, coloured LED lights onto your arm which can monitor blood flow, identifying your BPM. Sophisticated devices detect changes in the electrical current that flows through the skin to get an idea of your nervous system activity. Expert Perspectives A professor says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the continuously improving tech could potentially aid early diagnosis, "detecting disease before we notice anything", it could also turn us the tracked into the "anxious healthy". He points out that newer wearables can carry out tests like heart rhythm analysis, which continuously monitor how stable the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is erratic signals in the heart causing an arrhythmia. This does not necessarily indicate someone is imminently going to suffer a heart attack, but it can give an advance notice they might be more vulnerable of a stroke in the future. But how to make sense of these numbers is complex. The expert concerns that as more functions are introduced, people may struggle to fully comprehend their data. "I'm not entirely convinced that the ability to monitor so many things is such a beneficial thing," he says. A professor studying cardiology concurs. A study into the influence of wearable tech on a cohort of cardiovascular patients suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced heightened worry and were "had a higher tendency to use healthcare resources". She identified a cycle with her patients - they noticed a concerning reading on their watch. They grew concerned. Their pulse increased. They got increasingly anxious. They re-examined the data, and their anxiety increased again. "If we see stats about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, naturally, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We check, we obsess - it becomes a feedback loop."