🔗 Share this article

There's a building tension. I can see the cold breath coming from my rivals as they perform the "pre-race" jiggle on the start line.

A swift twitch of the hips.

I'm participating in my local Saturday morning race and I'm serious. The countdown begins...

Oh, hang on. I have to start my watch. So does the person alongside me.

The person behind us tuts. I refuse to go until… done! Connection established, and I'm running.

In the mele, it's challenging to see a person without a fitness tracker on it. And this extends beyond us participants who use them.

We're witnessing a thriving, multi-billion dollar sector. Names like Apple Watch dominate, all offering an wide selection of various models to cater to a variety of lifestyles. According to how advanced the device you choose, price tags can vary between £100 to a significant investment.

"It drives me insane, I'm unable to stop checking."

"It comforts me… It acts as a supporter encouraging me."

"Stop telling me about a restless night."

Just some of the comments people have shared from other tracker enthusiasts when I ask what they think of theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My current opinion on my own device? Right now, annoying. It's indicating my speed is wrong, leading me to doubt whether the overhead branches I'm passing under are disrupting my satellite signal.

Countless individuals of us attach these little gadgets onto our wrists and use them all day and night, apparently unconcerned with the fact they're perpetually monitoring us.

Gone are the days when we used them solely to give us an rough count of our daily steps. Currently, they can measure our sleep patterns, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, our body battery.

It's a challenge to find a physical metric they fail to monitor.

But do they do what they say they do? And are the numbers we scrutinise a true reflection of the truth? Do they boost our daily wellness, or do the multitude of readings and constant notifications just increase our daily stresses?

A Love-Hate Relationship

"I do get a a little preoccupied with mine," a wearer confesses.

While she loves how her device records her exercise, she finds some of its other features "overwhelming" at times - a feeling initially realised during a significant period.

Prior to discovering she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was failing to be productive enough. In a new phase, the watch frequently reports her she's had a restless night.

"I have a infant, there's no point to be notified my sleep was poor," she says. "I know that perfectly well."

Why doesn't she just stop wearing it?

"I could, theoretically, but I'm in this push-pull dynamic with it," she says. "I appreciate it for its exercise data, I just wonder whether all the other things it can now do is maybe excessive for me."

Inside the Device

Different brands of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of tracking your bodily functions and interpreting your data, but the majority use sensors on the underside of the watch.

They usually shine small, green LED lights onto your arm which can monitor pulsation, recording your heartbeat. More advanced devices analyse changes in the bioimpedance that passes over the skin to gauge your recovery state.

Expert Perspectives

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

He points out that the most advanced wearables can carry out 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 erratic electrical activity in the heart causing an uneven pulse.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is about to have a heart attack, but it can give an advance notice they might be more vulnerable of a blood clot in the years to come.

But how to interpret these numbers is not straightforward. The expert concerns that as additional features are incorporated, people may find it hard to fully contextualise their data.

"I have some doubts that having the capacity to monitor so many metrics is such a positive development," he says.

A clinical psychologist studying cardiology echoes this sentiment. Her work into the impact of wearable tech on a specific group of cardiovascular patients suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced increased anxiety and were "far more likely to use doctor's time".

She observed a vicious circle with her patients - they noticed a concerning reading on their watch. They became worried. Their heart rate rose. They got even more concerned. They re-examined the data, and their anxiety went up again.

"Upon viewing stats about ourselves that we don't really understand then, of course, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We look, we re-check - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."