Could I Be Dependent on My Fitness Tracker?

A sense of feeling of anticipation. Visible is the cold breath exhaled by my rivals as they execute the "starting line" wiggle on the start line.

A rapid flick of the hips.

I'm at my local 5km community parkrun and I'm focused. The countdown begins...

Hold on. I must sort my watch. As does the runner beside me.

The person waiting tuts. I'm not moving until… there! GPS ready, I'm off.

In the mele, it's hard to find a wrist without a fitness tracker on it. And this isn't only us runners who wear them.

It's a booming, multi-billion dollar market. Companies like Apple Watch are prevalent, all offering an extensive array of various models to cater to a range of needs. Depending on how high tech the device you select, price tags can start from a hundred pounds to a small fortune.

"It drives me insane, I can't relax."

"It comforts me… It acts as a friend supporting me."

"Stop telling me I've had a poor sleep."

A small sample of the reactions people have shared from other tracker enthusiasts when I inquire what they their opinion is on theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My current opinion on my own device? Currently, frustrating. It's indicating my speed is wrong, leading me to doubt whether the overhead branches I'm passing under are blocking my GPS connection.

Countless individuals of us attach these compact monitors onto our arms and use them all day and night, apparently comfortable with the fact they're continuously tracking us.

Gone are the days when we depended on them exclusively to give us an estimation of our daily steps. Currently, they can measure our sleep quality, blood pressure, heart rate variability (HRV), our body battery.

It's a challenge to find a health indicator they aren't designed to measure.

But are they able to do what they advertise? And are the data points we obsess over a faithful picture of reality? Do they enhance our mental and physical wellbeing, or do the avalanche of readings and constant notifications just add to our daily stresses?

Addiction or Aid?

"I do get a a little obsessed with mine," one user reveals.

While she loves how her device tracks her runs, she finds some of its other functions "overwhelming" at times - a feeling first discovered during a pregnancy.

Prior to discovering she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was failing to be active enough. Later on, the watch insists her she's had a restless night.

"I've got a young baby, there's no point to be notified I'm tired," she says. "I'm acutely aware all too clearly."

Why doesn't she just take it off?

"It's possible, theoretically, but I've got this push-pull dynamic with it," she continues. "I love it for its fitness insights, but I'm unsure whether the myriad other functions it can now do is perhaps overkill for me."

Inside the Device

Each model of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of measuring your bodily functions and analysing your data, but the vast bulk use sensors on the back of the watch.

They usually shine tiny, coloured LED lights onto your skin which can detect capillary action, detecting your pulse rate. Higher-end devices measure changes in the skin conductance that runs through the skin to get an idea of your recovery state.

A Fine Balance

One expert says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the ever-evolving tech could potentially aid early diagnosis, "identifying issues 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 carry out tests like heart rhythm analysis, which continuously monitor how healthy the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is irregular signals in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

This does not automatically signal someone is imminently going to suffer 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 make sense of these numbers is complicated. The expert concerns that as more functions are introduced, people may not be able to fully contextualise their data.

"I remain sceptical that being able to monitor so much data is such a beneficial thing," he says.

A clinical psychologist specialising in wearable tech 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 heightened worry and were "more inclined to use medical services".

She identified a cycle with her patients - they spotted a worrying figure on their watch. They felt anxious. Their BPM went up. They got increasingly anxious. They looked a second time, and their heart rate increased again.

"When people are presented with data about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, of course, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We look, we obsess - it becomes a vicious cycle."