Could I Be Dependent on My Fitness Tracker?

There's a building tension. I can see the chilled vapour exhaled by my competitors as they execute the "pre-race" wiggle on the starting line.

A rapid flick of the hips.

I'm lined up for my local weekly parkrun event and I'm serious. The countdown begins...

Hold on. I must sort my device. So does the person beside me.

The person waiting tuts. I won't start until… there! Connection established, and I'm running.

In the mele, it's challenging to spot a wrist without a smartwatch on it. And it's not just us participants who rely on them.

We're witnessing a booming, multi-billion dollar industry. Companies like Samsung Galaxy dominate, featuring an wide selection of various devices to cater to a variety of budgets. Depending on how high tech the model you select, prices can vary between a hundred pounds to thousands of pounds.

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

"It comforts me… It's like a supporter guiding me."

"I wish it wouldn't say I've experienced a poor sleep."

Just some of the comments I've had from fellow tracker enthusiasts when I inquire what they feel about theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My current opinion on my own device? At this moment, frustrating. It's reporting my speed is wrong, making me wonder whether the trees I'm running below are interfering with my GPS connection.

Countless individuals of us fasten these little gadgets onto our arms and keep them on constantly, seemingly at ease with the fact they're continuously monitoring us.

Gone are the days when we depended on them only to give us an rough count of our daily steps. Today, they can track our sleep patterns, heart rate, glucose levels, our recovery score.

It's a challenge to find a bodily function they aren't designed to measure.

But do they do what they advertise? And are the data points we obsess over a accurate representation of reality? Do they enhance our daily wellness, or do the plethora of readings and motivational messages just contribute to our daily stresses?

Addiction or Aid?

"I find myself getting a quite fixated with mine," an individual reveals.

While she loves how her device tracks her exercise, she finds some of its other functions "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 kept telling her she was not being productive enough. Now, the watch insists her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I have a six-month old, I don't need to be informed I'm tired," she says. "That fact is all too clearly."

Couldn't she just take it off?

"I could, I suppose, but I've got this push-pull dynamic with it," she explains. "I love it for its fitness insights, I sometimes question whether all the other things it can now do is perhaps overkill for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Different brands of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of measuring your bodily functions and analysing your data, but the majority use sensors on the back of the watch.

They usually emit minute LED lights onto your arm which can monitor capillary action, recording your pulse rate. Higher-end devices detect changes in the skin conductance that passes over the skin to gauge your nervous system activity.

The Professional Viewpoint

A professor says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the rapidly advancing tech could potentially aid early diagnosis, "identifying issues before we show symptoms", it could also turn us the tracked into the "worried well".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can perform tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which regularly monitor how normal the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is abnormal signals in the heart causing an uneven pulse.

This does not mean someone is on the verge of 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 complex. The expert concerns that as further capabilities are introduced, people may find it hard to fully contextualise their data.

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

A professor specialising in wearable tech concurs. Her work into the influence of wearable tech on a cohort of heart condition patients suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced greater stress and were "had a higher tendency to use healthcare resources".

She identified a pattern with her patients - they saw a worrying figure on their watch. They grew concerned. Their heart rate went up. They got more worried. They looked a second time, and their anxiety increased again.

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