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There's a building tension. Visible is the frosty air exhaled by my fellow runners as they execute the "starting line" shuffle on the starting line.

A swift flick of the hips.

I'm participating in my local weekly parkrun event and I'm focused. Three, two, one...

Hold on. I need to adjust my watch. The same goes for the runner beside me.

The person waiting tuts. I won't start until… there! GPS ready, I'm off.

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

We're witnessing a thriving, multi-billion dollar market. Brands like Samsung Galaxy are prevalent, each with an extensive array of various models to fit a variety of lifestyles. Based on how high tech the watch you go for, costs can range from £100 to a significant investment.

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

"It reassures me… It's like a companion encouraging me."

"Stop telling me I've had a poor sleep."

Just some of the reactions I've received from other smartwatch wearers when I question what they their opinion is on theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My thoughts on my own device? At this moment, irritating. It's reporting my speed is wrong, leading me to doubt whether the foliage I'm running below are blocking my location tracking.

Millions of us attach these small devices onto our arms and wear them 24/7, seemingly unconcerned with the fact they're continuously tracking us.

Gone are the days when we used them exclusively to give us an estimation of our step count. Now, they can measure our sleep patterns, blood pressure, glucose levels, our VO2 max.

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

But can they do what they say they do? And are the statistics we obsess over a accurate representation of the truth? Do they improve our overall health, or do the multitude of metrics and motivational messages just add to our sense of overwhelm?

Addiction or Aid?

"I do get a a little preoccupied with mine," one user reveals.

While she loves how her device tracks her runs, she finds some of its other features "daunting" at times - a feeling first discovered during a major life event.

Before she realised she could change its configuration, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was not being energetic enough. Later on, the watch frequently reports her she's had a poor sleep score.

"I am caring for a infant, there's no point to be told my sleep was poor," she says. "That fact is all too clearly."

Is it not possible to just remove it?

"I suppose I could, theoretically, but I have this love-hate relationship with it," she explains. "I appreciate it for its fitness insights, I sometimes question whether the myriad other functions it can now do is maybe too much for me."

Inside the Device

Every device of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of tracking your health metrics and interpreting your data, but the vast bulk use sensors on the underside of the watch.

They usually emit tiny, coloured LED lights onto your skin which can monitor blood flow, recording your BPM. More advanced devices analyse changes in the skin conductance that flows through the skin to assess your nervous system activity.

A Fine Balance

A professor says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the continuously improving tech could realistically aid early diagnosis, "spotting abnormalities before we show symptoms", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "worried well".

He points out that the most advanced wearables can perform tests like heart rhythm analysis, which continuously monitor how healthy the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is erratic electrical activity in the heart causing an uneven pulse.

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

But how to make sense of these readings is complex. The expert concerns that as more functions are incorporated, people may not be able to fully understand their data.

"I'm not entirely convinced that the ability to monitor so many things is such a beneficial thing," he says.

A clinical psychologist focusing on patient behaviour echoes this sentiment. Research into the influence of wearable tech on a set of individuals with health issues suggested a noticeable percentage of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced increased anxiety and were "more inclined to use healthcare resources".

She observed a vicious circle with her patients - they saw a alarming metric on their watch. They felt anxious. Their BPM rose. They got increasingly anxious. They looked a second time, and their heart rate increased again.

"If we see numbers about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, naturally, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We look, we re-check - it becomes a vicious cycle."