Could I Be Addicted to My Wearable Device?

An atmosphere of building tension. Apparent is the frosty air coming from my fellow runners as they perform the "about to run" jiggle on the beginning point.

A rapid flick of the hips.

I'm lined up for my local Saturday morning race and I'm focused. It's almost time...

Hold on. I have to adjust my watch. The same goes for the guy next to me.

The person waiting sighs. I'm not moving until… done! Signal acquired, away I go.

In the mele, it's challenging to see a arm without a fitness tracker on it. And it's not just us runners who wear them.

It's a thriving, multi-billion pound industry. Names like Garmin dominate, all offering an extensive selection of different models to suit a variety of needs. Based on how high tech the watch you select, prices can vary between a hundred pounds to a small fortune.

"I find it infuriating, I'm unable to stop checking."

"It provides solace… It acts as a companion encouraging me."

"Stop telling me I've had a restless night."

A small sample of the responses I've received from like-minded smartwatch wearers when I inquire what they think of theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My thoughts on my own device? At this moment, irritating. It's telling me I'm off pace, causing me to question whether the overhead branches I'm running below are blocking my satellite signal.

Countless individuals of us fasten these little monitors onto our arms and wear them all day and night, seemingly unconcerned with the fact they're continuously recording us.

Gone are the days when we depended on them only to give us an estimation of our pedometer reading. Now, they can measure our nightly rest, heart rate, oxygen saturation, our VO2 max.

It's a challenge to find a health indicator they don't track.

But are they able to do what they say they do? And are the data points we scrutinise a accurate representation of our actual health? Do they enhance our overall health, or do the avalanche of measurements and cheerleading alerts just contribute to our everyday anxiety?

A Complicated Bond

"I become a quite obsessed with mine," an individual confesses.

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

Until she found out she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was being insufficiently energetic enough. In a new phase, the watch frequently reports her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I've got a infant, I don't need to be informed I've not slept," she says. "I'm acutely aware only too well."

Couldn't she just remove it?

"I could, perhaps, but I've got this push-pull dynamic with it," she explains. "I love it for its exercise data, I just wonder whether the additional features it can now do is possibly excessive for me."

Inside the Device

Different brands of smartwatch has its own unique way of tracking your vitals and analysing your data, but the vast bulk use optical sensors on the reverse of the watch.

They commonly shine small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can observe capillary action, identifying your heartbeat. Sophisticated devices analyse changes in the skin conductance that flows through the skin to assess your nervous system activity.

Expert Perspectives

A professor says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the rapidly advancing tech could actually prevent illness, "identifying issues before we show symptoms", it could also turn us the tracked into the "worried well".

He points out that newer wearables can perform tests like medical-grade monitoring, which regularly monitor how stable the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is abnormal impulses in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not automatically signal someone is on the verge of a cardiac event, but it can give an advance notice they might be more at risk of a stroke in the years to come.

But how to understand these figures is complex. The expert concerns that as additional features are introduced, people may find it hard to fully comprehend their data.

"I have some doubts that the ability to monitor so much data is such a beneficial thing," he says.

A health researcher studying wearable tech agrees. A study into the effect of wearable tech on a cohort of cardiovascular patients suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced increased anxiety and were "had a higher tendency to use healthcare resources".

She noted a pattern with her patients - they spotted a concerning reading on their watch. They felt anxious. Their heart rate rose. They got more worried. They re-examined the data, and their reading increased again.

"If we see numbers about ourselves that we lack context for then, understandably, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we check again - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."