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An atmosphere of feeling of anticipation. Apparent is the chilled vapour emanating from my competitors as they do the "about to run" wiggle on the starting line.

A rapid twitch of the hips.

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

Hold on. I have to sort my watch. As does the person beside me.

The person behind us sighs. I won't start until… yes! Signal acquired, and I'm running.

In the mele, it's challenging to spot a person without a smartwatch on it. And this extends beyond us athletes who rely on them.

We're witnessing a thriving, massive sector. Companies like Apple Watch dominate, each with an extensive range of various versions to suit a spectrum of budgets. According to how advanced the watch you go for, costs can range from a hundred pounds to a small fortune.

"I find it infuriating, I can't stop checking."

"It provides solace… It feels like a supporter guiding me."

"I wish it wouldn't say I've experienced a bad night's sleep."

A small sample of the reactions I've had from fellow tracker enthusiasts when I question what they their opinion is on theirs.

A Sea of Statistics

My thoughts on mine? At this moment, annoying. It's telling me my speed is wrong, leading me to doubt whether the trees I'm passing under are blocking my GPS connection.

Millions of us strap these little gadgets onto our wrists and use them constantly, apparently comfortable with the fact they're perpetually recording us.

Long past are the days when we depended on them only to give us an estimation of our step count. Now, they can analyse our sleep quality, blood pressure, oxygen saturation, our recovery score.

It's a challenge to find a bodily function they fail to monitor.

But do they do what they advertise? And are the numbers we obsess over a faithful picture of our actual health? Do they boost our daily wellness, or do the avalanche of metrics and cheerleading alerts just increase our everyday anxiety?

Addiction or Aid?

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

While she appreciates how her device tracks her workouts, she finds some of its other functions "excessive" at times - a feeling that became apparent during a major life event.

Before she realised she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch repeatedly informed her she was failing to be active enough. Now, the watch frequently reports her she's had a restless night.

"I have a six-month old, there's no point to be told I'm tired," she says. "I know that all too clearly."

Couldn't she just take it off?

"It's possible, theoretically, but I've got this push-pull dynamic with it," she continues. "I love it for its workout tracking, I just wonder whether all the other things it can now do is maybe too much for me."

Inside the Device

Each model of smartwatch has its own novel way of monitoring your bodily functions and interpreting your data, but the vast bulk use detectors on the reverse of the watch.

They commonly emit small, green LED lights onto your wrist which can monitor blood flow, identifying your heartbeat. Higher-end devices analyse changes in the bioimpedance that flows through the skin to get an idea of your stress levels.

A Fine Balance

One expert says that overall for smartwatches, it's a "difficult line" - while the ever-evolving tech could actually save lives, "detecting disease before we show symptoms", it could also turn us device users into the "anxious healthy".

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

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

But how to make sense of these figures is not straightforward. The expert concerns that as additional features are incorporated, people may not be able to fully comprehend their data.

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

A health researcher specialising in wearable tech echoes this sentiment. A study into the influence of wearable tech on a cohort of heart condition patients suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their cardiac function experienced greater stress and were "more inclined to use healthcare resources".

She identified a pattern with her patients - they noticed a worrying figure on their watch. They felt anxious. Their BPM went up. They got increasingly anxious. They looked a second time, and their heart rate went up again.

"When people are presented with data about ourselves that we can't properly interpret then, of course, we are going to become concerned," the psychologist says. "We look, we check again - it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy."