🔗 Share this article

A sense of building tension. Visible is the cold breath exhaled by my fellow runners as they perform the "starting line" jiggle on the starting line.

A quick flick of the hips.

I'm participating in my local Saturday morning race and I mean business. Three, two, one...

Hold on. I must start my device. The same goes for the runner beside me.

The person behind us tuts. I refuse to go until… there! Connection established, away I go.

During the scramble, it's difficult to spot a arm without a smartwatch on it. And this isn't only us participants who rely on them.

This is a explosive, massive market. Companies like Garmin lead the market, featuring an extensive range of various versions to cater to a variety of lifestyles. Based on how high tech the model you choose, costs can start from an affordable sum to a small fortune.

"It makes me crazy, I'm unable to switch off."

"It reassures me… It acts as a supporter guiding me."

"Stop telling me about a bad night's sleep."

A small sample of the responses I've received from like-minded device users when I inquire what they their opinion is on theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My feelings on mine? Right now, frustrating. It's telling me my speed is wrong, leading me to doubt whether the overhead branches along my route are blocking my GPS connection.

A vast number of us strap these little gadgets onto our arms and wear them constantly, seemingly at ease with the fact they're continuously monitoring us.

Long past are the days when we depended on them only to give us an estimation of our pedometer reading. Today, they can measure our sleep quality, stress levels, oxygen saturation, our VO2 max.

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

But do they do what they say they do? And are the statistics we analyse a accurate representation of reality? Do they improve our daily wellness, or do the plethora of measurements and motivational messages just contribute to our daily stresses?

A Love-Hate Relationship

"I find myself getting a a little fixated with mine," an individual admits.

While she loves how her device monitors her workouts, she finds some of its other functions "daunting" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a significant period.

Before she realised she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was failing to be active enough. Now, the watch insists her she's had a restless night.

"I've got a infant, I don't need to be told my sleep was poor," she says. "I know that all too clearly."

Is it not possible to just stop wearing it?

"I could, theoretically, but I have this love-hate relationship with it," she continues. "I value it for its exercise data, I just wonder whether the myriad other functions it can now do is perhaps overkill for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Different brands of smartwatch has its own novel way of monitoring your bodily functions and interpreting your data, but the majority use detectors on the back of the watch.

They typically project small, green LED lights onto your arm which can detect pulsation, detecting your heartbeat. Sophisticated devices analyse changes in the bioimpedance that flows through the skin to get an idea of your recovery state.

Expert Perspectives

A data scientist says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the ever-evolving tech could potentially aid early diagnosis, "identifying issues before we show symptoms", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "worried well".

He points out that newer wearables can perform tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which regularly 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 irregular heartbeat.

This does not mean someone is on the verge of a cardiac event, but it can give an early warning they might be more at risk of a stroke in the future.

But how to understand these numbers is complex. The expert worries that as more functions are added, people may find it hard to fully understand their data.

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

A clinical psychologist studying cardiology echoes this sentiment. A study into the effect of wearable tech on a set of heart condition patients suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced increased anxiety and were "more inclined to use healthcare resources".

She observed a pattern with her patients - they saw a worrying figure on their watch. They became worried. Their pulse rose. They got more worried. They re-examined the data, and their reading rose further.

"When people are presented with data about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, understandably, we are going to seek clarification," the psychologist says. "We check, we obsess - it becomes a feedback loop."