Following Steven Bartlett‘s claim that three days of his life were ‘ruined’ after his smartwatch data suggested that two glasses of wine had negatively impacted his health, attention has once again turned to wearable technology.
Worn by one in three Britons, smartwatches – along with devices such as fitness bands and smart rings – are becoming increasingly commonplace, and not only among the fitness-conscious.
Equipped with apps that monitor everything from heart rate and sleep quality to VO2 max – a measure of how well the body uses oxygen during exercise – the gadgets deliver an abundance of personal health data to users.
But questions remain over their accuracy, as experts say some of the tech may not always be entirely reliable, raising concerns about how much trust people should place in the readings.
Amid the boom of ‘optimisation culture’ – the trend of tracking and measuring every aspect of daily life – they are now warning that an over-reliance on wearable technology can come at a mental health cost.
Katerina Georgiou, a British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy accredited psychotherapist and clinical supervisor, tells the Daily Mail: ‘People start off with good intentions.
‘They want to establish some control in their life, and these gadgets are there for that. But very often with these things, what starts off as a form of control can end up taking over, and we can become obsessed with them.’
So, how do you know if you’re dependent on your device? And why?
Steven Bartlett claimed that three days of his life were ‘ruined’ after his smartwatch data suggested that two glasses of wine had negatively impacted his health
Why do people become dependent on the technology?
Ms Georgiou, who also authored the book How to Understand and Deal with Stress, believes that wearable health technology is ‘designed to keep you using them’.
She says that, because the devices are built around a person’s own data and habits, they can be difficult to put down.
As many devices – such as smartwatches – are linked to mobile phones, they can generate a constant stream of notifications, encouraging users to use them more frequently and, in turn, check their progress throughout the day.
Ms Georgiou says: ‘If you have a tendency to fixate or suffer with an eating disorder, for example, you might have already have some behaviours that mean incorporating this extra thing into your life could feed those behaviours.’
Why is it harmful to be dependent?
Research has shown that issues may arise when users rely too heavily on wearable fitness devices.
A study from Newcastle University, published in the Journal of Public Policy and Marketing, found that the use of the tech was associated with negative emotions. These included anxiety, body dissatisfaction and rumination – the tendency to dwell on negative thoughts.
The researchers found that users who failed to meet targets or received negative feedback from their devices were more likely to experience these feelings.
Ms Georgiou also warned that an over-reliance on the gadgets can lead to obsessive habits and make missed targets feel like failures.
She said: ‘Instead of someone saying for example, ‘I’m going to track 10,000 steps’, it starts to become such a mission where if you only do 9,000 steps, it ruins your day.
Worn by one in three Britons, smartwatches – along with devices such as fitness trackers and smart rings – are becoming increasingly commonplace
‘You end up getting fixated on what you didn’t do, which then becomes counterproductive because the whole aim is to improve your life. This can create new anxieties that weren’t there before on account of not hitting targets.
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‘Because we’re such a target-driven society and everything is so productivity-driven, we start to end up in a mindset of we’ve failed if we’re not working at our absolute optimum.
‘Trying to keep this goal of optimising can become obsessive, and we can be caught up in that psychological loop of “if you’re not keeping track, you’re somehow failing”.’
Ms Georgiou also warned that wearable devices could worsen health anxiety, particularly when users try to make sense of health data without professional help.
She said: ‘If your heart rate has gone up, that could be perfectly normal, but you might suddenly start worrying there’s a problem. That can exacerbate some health anxiety, potentially, for some people.
‘So there is that risk there that people start to interpret the data in a way that they’re maybe not fully qualified to do, like a doctor or a scientist would be able to.
‘I think the danger is that we start to over-interpret the data and then act accordingly on our interpretation. And that might not be helpful because you might have interpreted it incorrectly.’
How do I know if I’m dependent?
Ms Georgiou said one of the clearest signs of dependency is when checking the data begins to take attention away from daily tasks.
As an example, she said: ‘Instead of talking to people at the dinner table, you’re maybe noticing yourself stealing away to look at your tracker.
‘Or maybe you’re feeling this urge to keep checking even though you’ve seen the answer.
‘These are subtle signs that your boundaries are getting a bit blurred. You might want to start re-establishing boundaries around the times at which you pay attention to that tracker.’
Equipped with apps that monitor everything from heart rate and sleep quality to VO2 max – a measure of how efficiently the body uses oxygen during exercise – the gadgets deliver an abundance of personal health data to users
She added that people should also pay attention to how the technology affects their mood.
Ms Georgiou explained: ‘Another sign would be if you notice your mood being affected. If you’re upset or in a bad mood quite often as a result of what you’re seeing on the devices, that’s an indicator as well.’
In these situations, she recommends taking a break from the devices and reconnecting with everyday activities away from health metrics and notifications.
She said: ‘You might want to take some time away from it, just reconnect to your other activities in the day.
‘If it starts to feel like it’s impacting your ability just to be human, then that’s an issue as well.’
What can I do to stop being dependent?
Ms Georgiou stressed that people should not feel pressured to constantly ‘optimise’ every aspect of their lives.
She said: ‘Remember that human beings are not robots. We’re not supposed to be fully optimised.
‘I would recommend putting the devices away for a time if you need to, and just re-engaging with the reminder that we’re imperfect and we can’t know everything all the time.’
She also encouraged people to focus on the basic foundations of living a healthy lifesty;e rather than obsessing over the metrics on the gadgets.
Ms Georgiou explained: ‘As long as you’re sleeping properly and you’re eating well and you’re lowering your stress, those are the best things that you can do.
‘I think a lot of these gadgets are trying to give certainty where life is all about the uncertain.
‘From a therapy perspective, I’d say it’s something about tolerating uncertainty and the unknown and reconnecting to the fact that it’s normal and it’s ok.
‘You don’t need to track everything and know the answer.’
