🔗 Share this article Am I Hooked on My Smartwatch? Numerous athletes catch themselves consulting their watches numerous times throughout a competition. An atmosphere of building tension. I can see the frosty air emanating from my rivals as they do the "starting line" jiggle on the starting line. A swift flick of the hips. I'm participating in my local Saturday morning race and I'm focused. The countdown begins... Oh, hang on. I have to adjust my device. So does the runner next to me. The person in the line sighs. I refuse to go until… there! GPS ready, and I'm running. Amidst the crowd, it's hard to find a person without a smartwatch on it. And this isn't only us athletes who use them. This is a explosive, massive industry. Brands like Samsung Galaxy dominate, all offering an extensive selection of various devices to suit a spectrum of needs. Based on how high tech the model you select, prices can vary between a hundred pounds to a significant investment. "I find it infuriating, it's impossible to relax." "It provides solace… It feels like a supporter encouraging me." "I wish it wouldn't say about a poor sleep." Just some of the reactions I've had from like-minded tracker enthusiasts when I question what they feel about theirs. Many users are often curious whether the data their device provides is correct. A Sea of Statistics My feelings on my own device? Right now, irritating. It's telling me my speed is wrong, leading me to doubt whether the foliage along my route are interfering with my satellite signal. Millions of us attach these little monitors onto our arms and keep them on constantly, apparently comfortable with the fact they're continuously recording us. Long past are the days when we depended on them only to give us an rough count of our pedometer reading. Now, they can analyse our nightly rest, stress levels, oxygen saturation, our VO2 max. It's tricky to find a health indicator they aren't designed to measure. But can they do what they say they do? And are the numbers we obsess over a faithful picture of reality? Do they boost our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the plethora of readings and cheerleading alerts just increase our sense of overwhelm? Some users find the sheer number of functions on their smartwatches to be "too much" at times. Addiction or Aid? "I do get a quite preoccupied with mine," an individual admits. While she values how her device monitors her runs, she finds some of its other features "excessive" at times - a feeling initially realised during a major life event. Prior to discovering she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch kept telling her she was being insufficiently active enough. Now, the watch frequently reports her she's had a bad night's sleep. "I have a young baby, there's no point to be told I'm tired," she says. "I know that perfectly well." Couldn't she just stop wearing it? "I could, theoretically, but I'm in this love-hate relationship with it," she continues. "I appreciate it for its workout tracking, I just wonder whether the myriad other functions it can now do is possibly too much for me." The Technology Behind the Tracking Different brands of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of monitoring your health metrics and analysing your data, but the vast bulk use optical sensors on the reverse of the watch. They usually emit tiny, coloured LED lights onto your wrist which can observe blood flow, detecting your heartbeat. More advanced devices detect changes in the bioimpedance that runs through the skin to assess your stress levels. The Professional Viewpoint A data scientist says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the ever-evolving tech could potentially aid early diagnosis, "spotting abnormalities before we notice anything", it could also turn us the tracked into the "concerned but fine". He points out that some of the latest wearables can perform tests like medical-grade monitoring, which regularly monitor how stable the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is erratic electrical activity in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat. This does not necessarily indicate someone is imminently going to suffer a cardiac event, but it can give an advance notice they might be more susceptible of a blood clot in the future. But how to understand these readings is complex. The expert fears that as more functions are added, people may struggle to fully comprehend their data. "I remain sceptical that having the capacity to monitor so many metrics is such a good idea," he says. A professor specialising in cardiology agrees. Her work into the impact of wearable tech on a cohort of individuals with health issues suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced greater stress and were "more inclined to use doctor's time". She noted a vicious circle with her patients - they noticed a alarming metric on their watch. They became worried. Their BPM increased. They got more worried. They re-examined the data, and their reading rose further. "If we see numbers about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, naturally, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We look, we obsess - it becomes a vicious cycle."