Could I Be Dependent on This Fitness Tracker?

A sense of nervous excitement. Visible is the chilled vapour coming from my competitors as they do the "pre-race" shuffle on the beginning point.

A quick twitch of the hips.

I'm participating in my local Saturday morning race and I mean business. It's almost time...

Wait a second. I need to sort my device. So does the person beside me.

The person in the line sighs. I won't start until… there! GPS ready, I'm off.

During the scramble, it's difficult to see a arm without a fitness tracker on it. And this isn't only us participants who rely on them.

It's a explosive, multi-billion dollar industry. Brands like Samsung Galaxy lead the market, all offering an extensive range of different devices to cater to a range of budgets. Based on how advanced the device you choose, price tags can vary between a hundred pounds to a small fortune.

"It makes me crazy, I can't relax."

"It provides solace… It's like a supporter encouraging me."

"Please don't notify me about a bad night's sleep."

A handful of the comments people have shared from fellow smartwatch wearers when I question what they their opinion is on theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My thoughts on my own device? Right now, irritating. It's reporting I'm not hitting my target, making me wonder whether the trees I'm passing under are disrupting my GPS connection.

A vast number of us strap these compact monitors onto our wrists and use them 24/7, ostensibly comfortable with the fact they're perpetually recording us.

A distant memory are the days when we relied on them solely to give us an estimation of our step count. Today, they can analyse our sleep patterns, heart rate, glucose levels, our recovery score.

It's difficult to find a bodily function they fail to monitor.

But are they able to do what they advertise? And are the statistics we obsess over a accurate representation of our actual health? Do they improve our daily wellness, or do the plethora of measurements and constant notifications just add to our daily stresses?

Addiction or Aid?

"I become a bit fixated with mine," one user reveals.

While she loves how her device tracks her runs, she finds some of its other features "daunting" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a significant period.

Prior to discovering she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was failing to be active enough. In a new phase, the watch insists her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I have a infant, it's unnecessary for me to be told I've not slept," she says. "I'm acutely aware all too clearly."

Why doesn't she just remove it?

"It's possible, theoretically, but I have this complicated dynamic with it," she explains. "I value it for its fitness insights, but I'm unsure whether all the other things it can now do is maybe overkill for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Each model of smartwatch has its own novel way of tracking your vitals and processing your data, but the most use detectors on the back of the watch.

They commonly project small, green LED lights onto your arm which can monitor capillary action, detecting your pulse rate. Higher-end devices detect changes in the bioimpedance that runs through the skin to get an idea of your nervous system activity.

A Fine Balance

A data scientist says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the rapidly advancing tech could actually save lives, "spotting abnormalities before we show symptoms", it could also turn us the tracked into the "worried well".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can carry out tests like heart rhythm analysis, which constantly monitor how stable the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is irregular signals in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

This does not mean someone is on the verge of a heart attack, but it can give an advance notice they might be more at risk of a heart problem in the long term.

But how to make sense of these figures is not straightforward. The expert worries that as additional features are incorporated, people may not be able to fully comprehend their data.

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

A clinical psychologist focusing on patient behaviour concurs. Her work into the effect of wearable tech on a specific group of cardiovascular patients suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced heightened worry and were "more inclined to use healthcare resources".

She noted a pattern with her patients - they noticed a concerning reading on their watch. They grew concerned. Their heart rate rose. They got more worried. They looked a second time, and their heart rate increased again.

"When people are presented with numbers about ourselves that we don't really understand then, naturally, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we obsess - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."