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An atmosphere of nervous excitement. Visible is the cold breath emanating from my fellow runners as they perform the "pre-race" shuffle on the beginning point.

A swift movement of the hips.

I'm at my local weekly parkrun event and I'm serious. The countdown begins...

Hold on. I need to start my device. The same goes for the person alongside me.

The person waiting expresses impatience. I'm not moving until… yes! Signal acquired, and I'm running.

During the scramble, it's challenging to find a person without a wearable on it. And this isn't only us runners who wear them.

We're witnessing a booming, massive market. Brands like Samsung Galaxy are prevalent, featuring an wide selection of different versions to fit a spectrum of needs. Based on how advanced the watch you select, costs can range from an affordable sum to a small fortune.

"It makes me crazy, it's impossible to stop checking."

"It provides solace… It feels like a friend supporting me."

"Stop telling me I've experienced a bad night's sleep."

Just some of the responses I've had from other device users when I ask what they their opinion is on theirs.

The Data Dilemma

My thoughts on my own device? Currently, frustrating. It's telling me I'm off pace, causing me to question whether the overhead branches I'm passing under are interfering with my GPS connection.

A vast number of us attach these little monitors onto our wrists and wear them all day and night, apparently unconcerned with the fact they're constantly monitoring us.

Long past are the days when we used them exclusively to give us an rough count of our pedometer reading. Today, they can track our sleep patterns, heart rate, oxygen saturation, our body battery.

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

But can they do what they advertise? And are the data points we obsess over a accurate representation of reality? Do they enhance our overall health, or do the plethora of metrics and cheerleading alerts just add to our everyday anxiety?

A Complicated Bond

"I find myself getting a a little preoccupied with mine," an individual reveals.

While she loves how her device monitors her exercise, she finds some of its other features "excessive" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a major life event.

Before she realised she could adjust the settings, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was not being energetic enough. In a new phase, the watch frequently reports her she's had a restless night.

"I am caring for a young baby, it's unnecessary for me to be told I'm tired," she says. "I know that only too well."

Is it not possible to just remove it?

"I could, I suppose, but I've got this push-pull dynamic with it," she explains. "I value it for its workout tracking, but I'm unsure whether the additional features it can now do is maybe excessive for me."

Inside the Device

Each model of smartwatch has its own proprietary way of monitoring your vitals and processing your data, but the majority use detectors on the back of the watch.

They typically project small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can observe blood flow, identifying your heartbeat. Higher-end devices detect changes in the electrical current that flows through the skin to gauge your recovery state.

The Professional Viewpoint

A professor says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the rapidly advancing tech could realistically prevent illness, "spotting abnormalities before we show symptoms", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "anxious healthy".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can carry out tests like heart rhythm analysis, which constantly monitor how stable the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is irregular signals in the heart causing an irregular heartbeat.

This does not necessarily indicate someone is on the verge of a heart attack, but it can give an early warning they might be more susceptible of a stroke in the long term.

But how to make sense of these numbers is not straightforward. The expert worries that as additional features are introduced, people may not be able to fully understand their data.

"I'm not entirely convinced that being able to monitor so much data is such a beneficial thing," he says.

A clinical psychologist studying cardiology echoes this sentiment. A study into the impact of wearable tech on a set of cardiovascular patients suggested a minority of those who were given devices to monitor their condition experienced increased anxiety and were "more inclined to use healthcare resources".

She observed a cycle with her patients - they noticed a alarming metric on their watch. They grew concerned. Their BPM went up. They got even more concerned. They checked again, and their anxiety rose further.

"Upon viewing numbers about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, of course, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we obsess - it becomes a feedback loop."