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There's a feeling of anticipation. Apparent is the frosty air emanating from my fellow runners as they execute the "pre-race" shuffle on the start line.

A rapid movement of the hips.

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

Oh, hang on. I need to start my tracker. So does the person beside me.

The person waiting expresses impatience. I'm not moving until… done! Connection established, I'm off.

In the mele, it's hard to spot a person without a smartwatch on it. And it's not just us runners who wear them.

This is a thriving, massive industry. Companies like Apple Watch dominate, featuring an broad selection of different devices to suit a variety of budgets. According to how high tech the model you choose, prices can range from an affordable sum to a small fortune.

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

"It reassures me… It acts as a supporter guiding me."

"Stop telling me about a bad night's sleep."

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

A Sea of Statistics

My current opinion on mine? Currently, annoying. It's telling me I'm not hitting my target, leading me to doubt whether the foliage I'm running below are disrupting my location tracking.

A vast number of us strap these little gadgets onto our arms and keep them on constantly, ostensibly comfortable with the fact they're constantly monitoring us.

A distant memory are the days when we relied on them exclusively to give us an estimation of our daily steps. Today, they can measure our sleep patterns, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, our body battery.

It's difficult to find a bodily function they don't track.

But can they do what they say they do? And are the statistics we analyse a true reflection of our actual health? Do they boost our daily wellness, or do the avalanche of measurements and motivational messages just increase our sense of overwhelm?

A Complicated Bond

"I do get a bit preoccupied with mine," an individual confesses.

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

Prior to discovering she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was being insufficiently productive enough. Now, the watch frequently reports her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I've got a infant, there's no point to be told I'm tired," she says. "I'm acutely aware all too clearly."

Is it not possible to just remove it?

"I suppose I could, perhaps, but I have this love-hate relationship with it," she says. "I appreciate it for its fitness insights, but I'm unsure whether the myriad other functions it can now do is possibly too much for me."

The Technology Behind the Tracking

Different brands of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of measuring your bodily functions and interpreting your data, but the majority use detectors on the reverse of the watch.

They typically shine tiny, coloured LED lights onto your arm which can monitor pulsation, identifying your heartbeat. Higher-end devices detect changes in the electrical current that runs through the skin to gauge your recovery state.

Expert Perspectives

A data scientist says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the rapidly advancing tech could actually aid early diagnosis, "identifying issues before we notice anything", it could also turn us device users into the "worried well".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can conduct tests like electrocardiograms (ECGs), which regularly monitor how stable the heart is. They can notify if someone is experiencing a heart arrhythmia, where there is irregular impulses in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is on the verge of a cardiac event, but it can give an early warning they might be more at risk of a blood clot in the years to come.

But how to interpret these figures is complex. The expert concerns that as more functions are added, people may not be able to fully contextualise their data.

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

A professor specialising in cardiology agrees. Research into the influence of wearable tech on a specific group of heart condition patients suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced increased anxiety and were "more inclined to use medical services".

She noted a vicious circle with her patients - they noticed a worrying figure on their watch. They felt anxious. Their pulse increased. They got even more concerned. They looked a second time, and their reading increased again.

"If we see data about ourselves that we don't really understand then, naturally, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We check, we obsess - it becomes a feedback loop."