🔗 Share this article Am I Addicted to My Wearable Device? Many runners end up checking their devices innumerable times in the middle of a race. There's a nervous excitement. Apparent is the cold breath coming from my fellow runners as they do the "starting line" jiggle on the starting line. A swift twitch of the hips. I'm lined up for my local weekly parkrun event and I'm focused. It's almost time... Wait a second. I need to adjust my device. The same goes for the runner next to me. The person waiting sighs. I won't start until… there! Connection established, away I go. Amidst the crowd, it's hard to spot a person without a smartwatch on it. And this extends beyond us runners who wear them. This is a booming, multi-billion pound market. Brands like Samsung Galaxy dominate, each with an broad array of diverse models to suit a range of lifestyles. Based on how high tech the model you go for, prices can vary between £100 to a significant investment. "It drives me insane, I'm unable to switch off." "It provides solace… It acts as a companion encouraging me." "Stop telling me about a restless night." A handful of the reactions I've had from like-minded device users when I ask what they feel about theirs. Many users are often curious whether the information on their watch is reliable. A Sea of Statistics My thoughts on mine? Right now, annoying. It's telling me I'm not hitting my target, leading me to doubt whether the overhead branches I'm passing under are interfering with my location tracking. Countless individuals of us attach these little devices onto our arms and use them 24/7, seemingly at ease with the fact they're constantly monitoring us. Gone are the days when we depended on them only to give us an idea of our daily steps. Currently, they can analyse our nightly rest, heart rate, glucose levels, our body battery. It's difficult to find a health indicator they fail to monitor. But do they do what they claim to do? And are the numbers we analyse a true reflection of the truth? Do they enhance our daily wellness, or do the plethora of readings and constant notifications just increase our sense of overwhelm? Some users find the multitude of functions on their smartwatches to be "too much" at times. Addiction or Aid? "I do get a a little obsessed with mine," one user confesses. While she loves how her device monitors her workouts, she finds some of its other features "overwhelming" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a major life event. Prior to discovering she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was not being productive enough. Later on, the watch insists her she's had a poor sleep score. "I have a infant, it's unnecessary for me to be told I've not slept," she says. "I know that only too well." Is it not possible to just take it off? "I suppose I could, I suppose, but I'm in this love-hate relationship with it," she continues. "I appreciate it for its fitness insights, I sometimes question whether the myriad other functions it can now do is maybe excessive for me." How Do They Work? Different brands of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of tracking your vitals and processing your data, but the most use detectors on the back of the watch. They typically project small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can detect pulsation, detecting your BPM. More advanced devices analyse changes in the bioimpedance that runs through the skin to assess your recovery state. Expert Perspectives A data scientist says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the continuously improving tech could realistically save lives, "detecting disease before we feel unwell", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "concerned but fine". He points out that some of the latest wearables can conduct tests like medical-grade monitoring, which regularly monitor how healthy the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is erratic impulses in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat. This does not mean someone is imminently going to suffer a heart attack, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more susceptible of a blood clot in the years to come. But how to make sense of these readings is complicated. The expert worries that as more functions are incorporated, people may find it hard to fully comprehend their data. "I'm not entirely convinced 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 cardiovascular patients suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced heightened worry and were "had a higher tendency to use medical services". She identified a vicious circle with her patients - they spotted a alarming metric on their watch. They became worried. Their pulse increased. They got even more concerned. They looked a second time, and their reading increased again. "If we see data about ourselves that we don't really understand then, understandably, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We look, we re-check - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."