Is It Possible I'm Dependent on This Fitness Tracker?

An atmosphere of building tension. I can see the cold breath coming from my rivals as they do the "pre-race" wiggle on the starting line.

A quick flick of the hips.

I'm at my local 5km community parkrun and I'm serious. Three, two, one...

Wait a second. I have to start my device. As does the person next to me.

The person in the line sighs. I refuse to go until… there! Signal acquired, and I'm running.

During the scramble, it's hard to spot a person without a smartwatch on it. And this isn't only us athletes who use them.

It's a thriving, multi-billion pound sector. Brands like Samsung Galaxy dominate, all offering an wide array of diverse models to fit a range of budgets. According to how high tech the model you select, price tags can range from £100 to thousands of pounds.

"It drives me insane, I can't stop checking."

"It reassures me… It feels like a supporter supporting me."

"I wish it wouldn't say about a restless night."

A handful of the responses people have shared from other tracker enthusiasts when I question what they their opinion is on theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My thoughts on mine? Currently, frustrating. It's reporting my speed is wrong, making me wonder whether the overhead branches I'm passing under are disrupting my satellite signal.

Millions of us attach these small gadgets onto our wrists and use them all day and night, ostensibly at ease with the fact they're constantly monitoring us.

Long past are the days when we used them only to give us an idea of our step count. Now, they can measure our sleep patterns, heart rate, heart rate variability (HRV), our recovery score.

It's difficult to find a physical metric they don't track.

But are they able to do what they advertise? And are the statistics we scrutinise a true reflection of reality? Do they improve our overall health, or do the plethora of metrics and cheerleading alerts just add to our sense of overwhelm?

A Complicated Bond

"I find myself getting a a little fixated with mine," an individual confesses.

While she loves how her device monitors her workouts, she finds some of its other capabilities "excessive" at times - a feeling initially realised during a pregnancy.

Prior to discovering she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch kept telling her she was not being active enough. Now, the watch frequently reports her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I am caring for a young baby, it's unnecessary for me to be informed I've not slept," she says. "That fact is all too clearly."

Is it not possible to just remove it?

"I suppose I could, perhaps, but I've got this complicated dynamic with it," she explains. "I value it for its exercise data, but I'm unsure whether all the other things it can now do is perhaps overkill for me."

Inside the Device

Every device of smartwatch has its own novel way of measuring your health metrics and interpreting your data, but the vast bulk use optical sensors on the back of the watch.

They commonly project small, green LED lights onto your skin which can monitor pulsation, detecting your BPM. Sophisticated devices measure changes in the bioimpedance that runs through the skin to get an idea of your nervous system activity.

The Professional Viewpoint

A data scientist says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the continuously improving tech could realistically save lives, "identifying issues before we notice anything", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "concerned but fine".

He points out that newer wearables can perform tests like medical-grade monitoring, which regularly monitor how healthy the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is erratic impulses in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not automatically signal someone is imminently going to suffer a heart attack, but it can give an early warning they might be more susceptible of a heart problem in the years to come.

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

"I remain sceptical that being able to monitor so many things is such a good idea," he says.

A health researcher studying cardiology agrees. Research into the effect of wearable tech on a set of cardiovascular patients suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced heightened worry and were "more inclined to use doctor's time".

She identified a vicious circle with her patients - they saw a alarming metric on their watch. They became worried. Their BPM rose. They got more worried. They re-examined the data, and their heart rate increased again.

"If we see stats about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, of course, we are going to seek clarification," the psychologist says. "We check, we re-check - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."