Could I Be Hooked on My Fitness Tracker?

There's a feeling of anticipation. Apparent is the cold breath exhaled by my fellow runners as they do the "about to run" wiggle on the start line.

A rapid movement of the hips.

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

Wait a second. I have to adjust my tracker. The same goes for the runner beside me.

The person waiting expresses impatience. I'm not moving until… yes! GPS ready, I'm off.

During the scramble, it's challenging to find a arm without a smartwatch on it. And it's not just us runners who use them.

This is a booming, multi-billion dollar sector. Companies like Samsung Galaxy are prevalent, each with an extensive selection of diverse versions to fit a spectrum of needs. According to how feature-packed the watch you select, prices can start from a hundred pounds to a small fortune.

"I find it infuriating, I'm unable to switch off."

"It reassures me… It feels like a supporter guiding me."

"I wish it wouldn't say I've experienced a restless night."

A small sample of the comments I've had from fellow smartwatch wearers when I question what they think of theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My current opinion on mine? Currently, irritating. It's telling me I'm off pace, leading me to doubt whether the foliage I'm passing under are interfering with my location tracking.

Countless individuals of us strap these little monitors onto our wrists and keep them on all day and night, ostensibly unconcerned with the fact they're perpetually recording us.

Gone are the days when we used them only to give us an rough count of our step count. Today, they can analyse our sleep patterns, blood pressure, glucose levels, our body battery.

It's tricky to find a physical metric they don't track.

But can they do what they advertise? And are the data points we scrutinise a faithful picture of our actual health? Do they improve our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the plethora of metrics and cheerleading alerts just increase our sense of overwhelm?

Addiction or Aid?

"I find myself getting a quite obsessed with mine," one user admits.

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

Prior to discovering she could change its configuration, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was being insufficiently energetic enough. Later on, the watch keeps telling her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I am caring for a six-month old, I don't need to be told my sleep was poor," she says. "I know that only too well."

Is it not possible to just stop wearing it?

"I could, theoretically, but I'm in this love-hate relationship with it," she continues. "I love it for its exercise data, I sometimes question whether all the other things it can now do is perhaps excessive for me."

How Do They Work?

Every device of smartwatch has its own unique way of tracking your health metrics and analysing your data, but the vast bulk use sensors on the underside of the watch.

They typically project tiny, coloured LED lights onto your skin which can observe capillary action, detecting your pulse rate. More advanced devices measure changes in the skin conductance that passes over the skin to gauge your recovery state.

Expert Perspectives

A data scientist says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the ever-evolving tech could potentially prevent illness, "identifying issues before we show symptoms", it could also turn us device users into the "concerned but fine".

He points out that newer wearables can perform tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which continuously monitor how stable the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is abnormal electrical activity in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is about to have a cardiac event, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more susceptible of a heart problem in the years to come.

But how to understand these figures is complex. The expert concerns that as additional features are introduced, people may not be able to fully comprehend their data.

"I have some doubts that having the capacity to monitor so many things is such a good idea," he says.

A health researcher studying wearable tech concurs. Research into the effect of wearable tech on a set of heart condition patients suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced increased anxiety and were "far more likely to use doctor's time".

She noted a vicious circle with her patients - they noticed a alarming metric on their watch. They felt anxious. Their pulse rose. They got even more concerned. They re-examined the data, and their reading increased again.

"When people are presented with numbers about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, of course, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We look, we re-check - it becomes a feedback loop."