🔗 Share this article Is It Possible I'm Dependent on My Wearable Device? Numerous athletes catch themselves consulting their trackers numerous times in the middle of a event. There's a feeling of anticipation. Apparent is the cold breath coming from my rivals as they execute the "starting line" shuffle on the beginning point. A quick movement of the hips. I'm lined up for my local weekly parkrun event and I'm focused. The countdown begins... Oh, hang on. I must sort my watch. So does the runner beside me. The person in the line sighs. I refuse to go until… yes! Signal acquired, away I go. Amidst the crowd, it's challenging to find a person without a wearable on it. And this isn't only us runners who rely on them. We're witnessing a explosive, massive industry. Brands like Apple Watch dominate, each with an extensive array of diverse models to fit a spectrum of lifestyles. Based on how high tech the device you select, price tags can vary between an affordable sum to thousands of pounds. "It drives me insane, it's impossible to stop checking." "It provides solace… It acts as a supporter supporting me." "Please don't notify me I've experienced a bad night's sleep." A handful of the responses I've received from like-minded device users when I ask what they feel about theirs. Individuals are left wondering whether the data on their watch is accurate. A Sea of Statistics My thoughts on my own device? At this moment, annoying. It's telling me my speed is wrong, making me wonder whether the foliage I'm running below are blocking my location tracking. A vast number of us fasten these small monitors onto our arms and wear them all day and night, seemingly unconcerned with the fact they're continuously monitoring us. Gone are the days when we used them only to give us an rough count of our daily steps. Now, they can analyse our sleep quality, blood pressure, glucose levels, our recovery score. It's a challenge to find a physical metric they aren't designed to measure. But are they able to do what they say they do? And are the data points we scrutinise a true reflection of our actual health? Do they enhance our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the avalanche of readings and cheerleading alerts just add to our daily stresses? Some users find the sheer number of functions on their smartwatches to be "overwhelming" at times. Addiction or Aid? "I become a quite obsessed with mine," a wearer reveals. While she appreciates how her device records her exercise, she finds some of its other features "daunting" at times - a feeling first discovered during a major life event. Before she realised she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was being insufficiently energetic enough. In a new phase, the watch insists her she's had a bad night's sleep. "I am caring for a young baby, it's unnecessary for me to be notified I've not slept," she says. "I'm acutely aware only too well." Why doesn't she just remove it? "It's possible, I suppose, but I'm in this push-pull dynamic with it," she says. "I appreciate it for its fitness insights, I just wonder whether the myriad other functions it can now do is perhaps too much for me." Inside the Device Different brands of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of monitoring your health metrics and processing your data, but the majority use optical sensors on the reverse of the watch. They usually emit small, green LED lights onto your skin which can monitor pulsation, identifying your heartbeat. More advanced devices measure changes in the electrical current that passes over the skin to assess your stress levels. Expert Perspectives A professor says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the continuously improving tech could actually aid early diagnosis, "identifying issues before we notice anything", it could also turn us device users into the "anxious healthy". He points out that some of the latest wearables can carry out tests like heart rhythm analysis, which continuously monitor how stable the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is erratic electrical activity in the heart causing an arrhythmia. This does not necessarily indicate someone is on the verge of a cardiac event, but it can give an advance notice they might be more at risk of a blood clot in the long term. But how to understand these figures is not straightforward. The expert worries that as more functions are introduced, people may struggle to fully contextualise their data. "I remain sceptical that the ability to monitor so much data is such a positive development," he says. A health researcher focusing on cardiology concurs. Research into the impact of wearable tech on a cohort of individuals with health issues suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced increased anxiety and were "more inclined to use doctor's time". She observed a vicious circle with her patients - they noticed a concerning reading on their watch. They grew concerned. Their heart rate rose. They got more worried. They checked again, and their reading rose further. "Upon viewing numbers about ourselves that we don't really understand then, understandably, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We look, we re-check - it becomes a vicious cycle."