Is It Possible I'm Addicted to My Fitness Tracker?

A sense of feeling of anticipation. Apparent is the frosty air exhaled by my rivals as they execute the "about to run" shuffle on the beginning point.

A swift movement of the hips.

I'm at my local Saturday morning race and I'm focused. It's almost time...

Oh, hang on. I must sort my tracker. So does the guy alongside me.

The person behind us sighs. I'm not moving until… done! GPS ready, and I'm running.

During the scramble, it's hard to find a arm without a smartwatch on it. And it's not just us runners who use them.

It's a booming, multi-billion dollar market. Companies like Apple Watch dominate, featuring an broad array of different models to cater to a spectrum of lifestyles. Depending on how feature-packed the watch you select, costs can vary between £100 to a small fortune.

"It makes me crazy, I'm unable to stop checking."

"It comforts me… It feels like a companion supporting me."

"Please don't notify me I've had a restless night."

Just some of the reactions I've received from like-minded smartwatch wearers when I question what they think of theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My current opinion on my own device? Currently, irritating. It's telling me I'm off pace, causing me to question whether the foliage I'm running below are disrupting my satellite signal.

A vast number of us strap these small gadgets onto our arms and keep them on 24/7, apparently at ease with the fact they're perpetually tracking us.

Gone are the days when we depended on them exclusively to give us an rough count of our pedometer reading. Today, they can measure our nightly rest, blood pressure, glucose levels, our body battery.

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

But are they able to do what they claim to do? And are the numbers we scrutinise a faithful picture of reality? Do they enhance our daily wellness, or do the multitude of measurements and motivational messages just add to our sense of overwhelm?

Addiction or Aid?

"I find myself getting a quite fixated with mine," one user confesses.

While she loves how her device monitors her runs, she finds some of its other capabilities "excessive" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a pregnancy.

Before she realised she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was not being energetic enough. In a new phase, the watch insists her she's had a restless night.

"I've got a six-month old, I don't need to be informed I'm tired," she says. "That fact is only too well."

Couldn't she just remove it?

"I suppose I could, perhaps, but I've got this complicated 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 overkill for me."

How Do They Work?

Every device of smartwatch has its own unique way of measuring your health metrics and analysing your data, but the majority use detectors on the back of the watch.

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

Expert Perspectives

A professor says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the rapidly advancing tech could potentially save lives, "identifying issues before we show symptoms", it could also turn us the tracked into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can carry out tests like heart rhythm analysis, which continuously monitor how healthy the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, 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 at risk of a blood clot in the future.

But how to understand these readings is complex. The expert concerns that as more functions are incorporated, people may find it hard to fully understand their data.

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

A health researcher studying patient behaviour agrees. Her work into the influence of wearable tech on a specific group of cardiovascular patients suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced greater stress and were "far more likely to use healthcare resources".

She noted a cycle with her patients - they saw a worrying figure on their watch. They felt anxious. Their BPM increased. They got even more concerned. They checked again, and their heart rate rose further.

"If we see data about ourselves that we lack context for then, understandably, we are going to seek clarification," the psychologist says. "We look, we check again - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."