Is It Possible I'm Addicted to This Smartwatch?

A sense of feeling of anticipation. Apparent is the cold breath exhaled by my rivals as they perform the "pre-race" shuffle on the starting line.

A rapid flick of the hips.

I'm participating in my local 5km community parkrun and I'm focused. The countdown begins...

Oh, hang on. I need to start my watch. The same goes for the guy next to me.

The person behind us tuts. I won't start until… there! Signal acquired, I'm off.

In the mele, it's challenging to see a arm without a wearable on it. And this isn't only us athletes who use them.

It's a booming, multi-billion pound market. Companies like Samsung Galaxy lead the market, all offering an extensive selection of diverse devices to cater to a spectrum of budgets. According to how feature-packed the model you choose, costs can range from £100 to a significant investment.

"I find it infuriating, it's impossible to switch off."

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

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

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

The Monitoring Conundrum

My feelings on my own device? Right now, frustrating. It's indicating I'm not hitting my target, making me wonder whether the overhead branches along my route are disrupting my GPS connection.

Millions of us fasten these little gadgets onto our wrists and keep them on all day and night, ostensibly unconcerned with the fact they're constantly monitoring us.

Gone are the days when we depended on them solely to give us an rough count of our pedometer reading. Currently, they can analyse our sleep patterns, heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), our recovery score.

It's difficult to find a bodily function they aren't designed to measure.

But do they do what they advertise? And are the statistics we scrutinise a true reflection of reality? Do they enhance our overall health, or do the avalanche of measurements and motivational messages just contribute to our sense of overwhelm?

Addiction or Aid?

"I do get a a little obsessed with mine," one user admits.

While she values how her device records her runs, she finds some of its other functions "overwhelming" at times - a feeling first discovered during a major life event.

Prior to discovering she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was failing to be energetic enough. Now, the watch frequently reports her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I am caring for a infant, there's no point to be notified I'm tired," she says. "I'm acutely aware only too well."

Why doesn't she just remove it?

"I suppose I could, perhaps, but I'm in this complicated dynamic with it," she says. "I appreciate it for its fitness insights, but I'm unsure whether all the other things it can now do is maybe too much for me."

Inside the Device

Different brands of smartwatch has its own novel way of tracking your bodily functions and processing your data, but the most use sensors on the back of the watch.

They commonly project minute LED lights onto your wrist which can monitor blood flow, detecting your heartbeat. Higher-end devices detect changes in the bioimpedance that runs through the skin to get an idea of your nervous system activity.

A Fine Balance

One expert says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the continuously improving tech could potentially save lives, "identifying issues before we show symptoms", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "concerned but fine".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can conduct tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which continuously monitor how stable the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is abnormal electrical activity in the heart causing an uneven pulse.

This does not automatically signal someone is imminently going to suffer a cardiac event, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more vulnerable of a stroke in the long term.

But how to interpret these figures is not straightforward. The expert concerns that as further capabilities are added, people may find it hard to fully comprehend their data.

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

A professor focusing on wearable tech concurs. Research into the impact of wearable tech on a cohort of heart condition patients suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced heightened worry and were "had a higher tendency to use medical services".

She identified a vicious circle with her patients - they saw a worrying figure on their watch. They grew concerned. Their heart rate increased. They got increasingly anxious. They checked again, and their anxiety increased again.

"When people are presented with stats about ourselves that we don't really understand then, of course, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We check, we check again - it becomes a feedback loop."