Could I Be Dependent on My Smartwatch?
An atmosphere of building tension. Apparent is the chilled vapour emanating from my competitors as they perform the "pre-race" shuffle on the starting line.
A quick movement of the hips.
I'm participating in my local Saturday morning race and I'm serious. Three, two, one...
Hold on. I have to adjust my tracker. As does the guy beside me.
The person behind us tuts. I refuse to go until… there! Connection established, away I go.
During the scramble, it's hard to spot a person without a fitness tracker on it. And this isn't only us athletes who use them.
We're witnessing a thriving, massive sector. Brands like Garmin lead the market, all offering an wide selection of different devices to suit a variety of needs. Based on how high tech the device you select, costs can start from a hundred pounds to a significant investment.
"It drives me insane, I'm unable to stop checking."
"It reassures me… It feels like a supporter guiding me."
"Please don't notify me about a restless night."
Just some of the reactions I've received from other smartwatch wearers when I ask what they their opinion is on theirs.
The Data Dilemma
My current opinion on mine? Right now, annoying. It's indicating my speed is wrong, making me wonder whether the overhead branches I'm running below are disrupting my location tracking.
Countless individuals of us fasten these little gadgets onto our wrists and wear them 24/7, ostensibly at ease with the fact they're continuously monitoring us.
Gone are the days when we depended on them exclusively to give us an idea of our daily steps. Today, they can track our sleep quality, heart rate, oxygen saturation, our body battery.
It's a challenge to find a health indicator they aren't designed to measure.
But do they do what they advertise? And are the data points we scrutinise a true reflection of reality? Do they boost our overall health, or do the multitude of metrics and motivational messages just contribute to our daily stresses?
A Complicated Bond
"I become a a little preoccupied with mine," one user confesses.
While she values how her device tracks her workouts, she finds some of its other features "overwhelming" at times - a feeling first discovered during a significant period.
Until she found out she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch kept telling her she was being insufficiently energetic enough. Later on, the watch frequently reports her she's had a restless night.
"I've got a young baby, I don't need to be informed I've not slept," she says. "That fact is perfectly well."
Why doesn't she just stop wearing it?
"I suppose I could, perhaps, but I'm in this push-pull dynamic with it," she explains. "I appreciate it for its exercise data, but I'm unsure whether the myriad other functions it can now do is maybe excessive for me."
Inside the Device
Every device of smartwatch has its own novel way of monitoring your vitals and interpreting your data, but the vast bulk use detectors on the reverse of the watch.
They commonly project small, green LED lights onto your arm which can monitor capillary action, identifying your BPM. Higher-end devices analyse changes in the skin conductance that runs through the skin to get an idea of your nervous system activity.
A Fine Balance
A professor says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the rapidly advancing tech could actually aid early diagnosis, "detecting disease before we show symptoms", it could also turn us the tracked into the "anxious healthy".
He points out that some of the latest wearables can carry out tests like medical-grade monitoring, which constantly monitor how normal the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is irregular electrical activity in the heart causing an arrhythmia.
This does not mean someone is imminently going to suffer a cardiac event, but it can give an early warning they might be more susceptible of a stroke in the future.
But how to interpret these numbers is not straightforward. The expert fears that as more functions are added, people may not be able to fully comprehend their data.
"I have some doubts that having the capacity to monitor so many things is such a good idea," he says.
A health researcher studying cardiology concurs. A study into the influence of wearable tech on a cohort of heart condition patients suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced heightened worry and were "far more likely to use healthcare resources".
She observed a vicious circle with her patients - they saw a concerning reading on their watch. They grew concerned. Their heart rate rose. They got more worried. They looked a second time, and their anxiety rose further.
"Upon viewing data about ourselves that we don't really understand then, understandably, we are going to seek clarification," the psychologist says. "We look, we re-check - it becomes a vicious cycle."
