🔗 Share this article Am I Hooked on My Smartwatch? Many runners catch themselves consulting their watches numerous times in the middle of a race. A sense of feeling of anticipation. I can see the cold breath exhaled by my rivals as they perform the "starting line" shuffle on the starting line. A quick twitch of the hips. I'm participating in my local 5km community parkrun and I'm serious. It's almost time... Wait a second. I have to start my tracker. As does the runner beside me. The person behind us expresses impatience. I'm not moving until… done! Signal acquired, I'm off. Amidst the crowd, it's difficult to find a arm without a fitness tracker on it. And it's not just us participants who rely on them. This is a thriving, massive sector. Names like Apple Watch dominate, featuring an broad array of various devices to fit a variety of budgets. Based on how advanced the model you choose, price tags can range from £100 to thousands of pounds. "It makes me crazy, I can't stop checking." "It provides solace… It acts as a supporter guiding me." "Please don't notify me I've experienced a poor sleep." A handful of the responses people have shared from other device users when I question what they think of theirs. Frequent wearers are left wondering whether the information their device provides is reliable. The Monitoring Conundrum My feelings on mine? Currently, annoying. It's indicating my speed is wrong, causing me to question whether the trees I'm passing under are blocking my satellite signal. Countless individuals of us attach these compact gadgets onto our wrists and wear them 24/7, ostensibly unconcerned with the fact they're constantly tracking us. Long past are the days when we relied on them exclusively to give us an estimation of our pedometer reading. Now, they can measure our sleep quality, stress levels, glucose levels, our body battery. It's tricky to find a physical metric they fail to monitor. But can they do what they claim to do? And are the data points we analyse a accurate representation of our actual health? Do they boost our daily wellness, or do the avalanche of metrics and constant notifications just increase our sense of overwhelm? Some users find the abundance of functions on their smartwatches to be "too much" at times. A Love-Hate Relationship "I find myself getting a a little fixated with mine," a wearer reveals. While she values how her device monitors her exercise, she finds some of its other capabilities "overwhelming" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a significant period. Until she found out she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was being insufficiently active enough. Now, the watch insists her she's had a poor sleep score. "I've got a young baby, there's no point to be notified I've not slept," she says. "I'm acutely aware all too clearly." Couldn't she just stop wearing it? "I could, perhaps, but I've got this love-hate relationship with it," she says. "I appreciate it for its fitness insights, I sometimes question whether the myriad other functions it can now do is possibly excessive for me." How Do They Work? Different brands of smartwatch has its own unique way of tracking your vitals and processing your data, but the majority use optical sensors on the underside of the watch. They commonly emit small, green LED lights onto your arm which can monitor capillary action, 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. The Professional Viewpoint A professor says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the ever-evolving tech could actually prevent illness, "detecting disease before we show symptoms", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "anxious healthy". He points out that newer wearables can conduct tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which constantly monitor how stable the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is abnormal electrical activity in the heart causing an uneven pulse. This does not mean someone is about to have a heart attack, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more susceptible of a blood clot in the years to come. But how to make sense of these readings is complex. The expert concerns that as additional features are introduced, people may struggle to fully comprehend their data. "I remain sceptical that the ability to monitor so many metrics is such a good idea," he says. A health researcher focusing on cardiology concurs. A study into the effect of wearable tech on a set of heart condition patients 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 medical services". She noted a cycle with her patients - they spotted a alarming metric on their watch. They grew concerned. Their heart rate increased. They got increasingly anxious. They looked a second time, and their reading rose further. "If we see data about ourselves that we don't really understand then, naturally, we are going to seek clarification," the psychologist says. "We look, we obsess - it becomes a feedback loop."