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There's a building tension. Apparent is the frosty air coming from my rivals as they execute the "pre-race" shuffle on the starting line.

A quick flick of the hips.

I'm lined up for my local weekly parkrun event and I mean business. The countdown begins...

Oh, hang on. I must adjust my device. So does the guy beside me.

The person waiting tuts. I'm not moving until… done! GPS ready, away I go.

In the mele, it's challenging to find a wrist without a fitness tracker on it. And this extends beyond us runners who wear them.

This is a thriving, multi-billion dollar market. Companies like Garmin dominate, featuring an broad range of diverse models to suit a variety of budgets. Based on how advanced the device you select, price tags can vary between an affordable sum to a small fortune.

"It drives me insane, I'm unable to switch off."

"It comforts me… It acts as a companion encouraging me."

"I wish it wouldn't say I've experienced a poor sleep."

A small sample of the reactions people have shared from other device users when I inquire what they their opinion is on theirs.

The Monitoring Conundrum

My current opinion on my own device? At this moment, frustrating. It's indicating my speed is wrong, making me wonder whether the trees along my route are disrupting my GPS connection.

Millions of us strap these compact gadgets onto our arms and use them 24/7, ostensibly comfortable with the fact they're perpetually tracking us.

A distant memory are the days when we used them exclusively to give us an rough count of our daily steps. Today, they can track our nightly rest, stress levels, oxygen saturation, our body battery.

It's a challenge to find a health indicator they don't track.

But are they able to do what they claim to do? And are the numbers we analyse a faithful picture of the truth? Do they enhance our overall health, or do the avalanche of readings and cheerleading alerts just add to our everyday anxiety?

Addiction or Aid?

"I find myself getting a quite obsessed with mine," an individual admits.

While she values how her device monitors her exercise, she finds some of its other functions "overwhelming" at times - a feeling first discovered during a significant period.

Before she realised she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch constantly alerted her she was not being productive enough. Now, the watch frequently reports her she's had a restless night.

"I am caring for a infant, there's no point to be told my sleep was poor," she says. "I'm acutely aware only too well."

Why doesn't she just take it off?

"I suppose I could, I suppose, but I have this push-pull dynamic with it," she continues. "I love it for its exercise data, I sometimes question whether the additional features it can now do is possibly overkill for me."

Inside the Device

Every device of smartwatch has its own unique way of tracking your bodily functions and analysing your data, but the majority use detectors on the reverse of the watch.

They commonly project tiny, coloured LED lights onto your skin which can monitor capillary action, identifying your pulse rate. Higher-end devices detect changes in the electrical current that passes over the skin to gauge your nervous system activity.

The Professional Viewpoint

One expert says that for most people for smartwatches, it's a "fine balance" - while the rapidly advancing tech could actually save lives, "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 electrocardiograms (ECGs), which constantly monitor how normal the heart is. They can alert if someone is experiencing atrial fibrillation (AF), where there is abnormal impulses in the heart causing an uneven pulse.

This does not mean someone is on the verge of a heart attack, but it can give an early warning they might be more at risk of a heart problem in the long term.

But how to interpret these readings is complicated. The expert concerns that as more functions are incorporated, people may struggle to fully understand their data.

"I have some doubts that being able to monitor so many metrics is such a beneficial thing," he says.

A clinical psychologist studying patient behaviour concurs. Her work into the effect of wearable tech on a cohort of heart condition patients suggested a significant portion of those who were given devices to monitor their heart health experienced heightened worry and were "far more likely to use doctor's time".

She identified a vicious circle with her patients - they noticed a worrying figure on their watch. They felt anxious. Their heart rate increased. They got increasingly anxious. They re-examined the data, and their reading rose further.

"If we see stats about ourselves that we don't really understand then, understandably, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We look, we re-check - it becomes a vicious cycle."