Is It Possible I'm Hooked on My Fitness Tracker?

A sense of building tension. Apparent is the chilled vapour emanating from my competitors as they execute the "pre-race" wiggle on the start line.

A rapid twitch of the hips.

I'm at my local 5km community parkrun and I'm serious. It's almost time...

Hold on. I need to start my tracker. So does the guy next to me.

The person waiting tuts. I won't start until… yes! Signal acquired, away I go.

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

This is a booming, massive sector. Companies like Garmin dominate, featuring an broad array of diverse devices to fit a variety of needs. Based on how feature-packed the watch you choose, costs can start from an affordable sum to a small fortune.

"I find it infuriating, it's impossible to switch off."

"It reassures me… It's like a supporter supporting me."

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

A small sample of the comments I've received from other tracker enthusiasts when I question what they think of theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My feelings on mine? Currently, frustrating. It's indicating my speed is wrong, making me wonder whether the trees I'm running below are blocking my location tracking.

A vast number of us fasten these little devices onto our wrists and wear them 24/7, ostensibly comfortable with the fact they're constantly recording us.

A distant memory are the days when we depended on them solely to give us an estimation of our daily steps. Currently, they can track our nightly rest, heart rate, oxygen saturation, our body battery.

It's tricky to find a health indicator they don't track.

But are they able to do what they advertise? And are the statistics we analyse a accurate representation of reality? Do they enhance our daily wellness, or do the multitude of readings and motivational messages just contribute to our sense of overwhelm?

A Complicated Bond

"I find myself getting a quite preoccupied with mine," a wearer confesses.

While she values how her device records her runs, 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 adjust the settings, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was being insufficiently energetic enough. Now, the watch frequently reports her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I have a young baby, I don't need to be notified I'm tired," she says. "I'm acutely aware all too clearly."

Why doesn't she just remove it?

"I could, theoretically, but I'm in this love-hate relationship with it," she explains. "I value it for its exercise data, I just wonder 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 vast bulk use optical sensors on the reverse of the watch.

They commonly project small, green LED lights onto your arm which can monitor blood flow, recording your pulse rate. Sophisticated devices detect changes in the skin conductance that passes over the skin to gauge your recovery state.

The Professional Viewpoint

One expert says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the rapidly advancing tech could realistically prevent illness, "identifying issues before we notice anything", it could also turn us the tracked into the "worried well".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can carry out tests like medical-grade monitoring, which regularly monitor how stable the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is abnormal signals in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

This does not mean someone is about to have a heart attack, but it can give an preliminary indication they might be more vulnerable of a heart problem in the years to come.

But how to interpret these readings is complex. The expert fears that as further capabilities are added, people may not be able to fully comprehend their data.

"I remain sceptical that having the capacity to monitor so much data is such a good idea," he says.

A clinical psychologist specialising in wearable tech agrees. A study into the influence of wearable tech on a specific group of individuals with health issues suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced greater stress and were "had a higher tendency to use healthcare resources".

She observed a cycle with her patients - they saw a concerning reading on their watch. They became worried. Their heart rate increased. They got even more concerned. They looked a second time, and their anxiety increased again.

"When people are presented with stats about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, of course, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We look, we re-check - it becomes a vicious cycle."