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An atmosphere of building tension. Apparent is the cold breath emanating from my rivals as they perform the "starting line" shuffle on the beginning point.

A swift movement of the hips.

I'm at my local 5km community parkrun and I'm focused. Three, two, one...

Wait a second. I have to sort my device. The same goes for the guy next to me.

The person behind us tuts. I'm not moving until… there! Connection established, away I go.

Amidst the crowd, it's difficult to spot a arm without a smartwatch on it. And this isn't only us participants who wear them.

It's a thriving, massive sector. Brands like Apple Watch dominate, featuring an broad range of various devices to cater to a variety of needs. Depending on how advanced the watch you go for, price tags can start from £100 to a significant investment.

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

"It provides solace… It acts as a friend supporting me."

"Please don't notify me I've had a bad night's sleep."

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

The Data Dilemma

My current opinion on my own device? Right now, irritating. It's indicating my speed is wrong, leading me to doubt whether the overhead branches I'm passing under are interfering with my satellite signal.

A vast number of us strap these small monitors onto our arms and use them 24/7, seemingly unconcerned with the fact they're continuously tracking us.

Gone are the days when we relied on them exclusively to give us an estimation of our daily steps. Currently, they can measure our sleep quality, heart rate, oxygen saturation, our body battery.

It's tricky to find a physical metric they fail to monitor.

But do they do what they advertise? And are the numbers we analyse a faithful picture of reality? Do they boost our overall health, or do the multitude of measurements and motivational messages just contribute to our sense of overwhelm?

A Love-Hate Relationship

"I become a quite obsessed with mine," one user reveals.

While she appreciates how her device tracks her runs, she finds some of its other capabilities "overwhelming" at times - a feeling initially realised during a significant period.

Until she found out she could put it into a specific mode, her smartwatch kept telling her she was not being energetic enough. In a new phase, the watch keeps telling her she's had a bad night's sleep.

"I've got a infant, it's unnecessary for me to be informed my sleep was poor," she says. "I'm acutely aware all too clearly."

Is it not possible to just stop wearing it?

"I suppose I could, theoretically, but I have this complicated dynamic with it," she says. "I value it for its exercise data, I just wonder whether the myriad other functions it can now do is perhaps overkill for me."

Inside the Device

Each model of smartwatch has its own novel way of tracking your bodily functions and interpreting your data, but the most use sensors on the back of the watch.

They typically emit small, green LED lights onto your skin which can observe pulsation, identifying your BPM. Sophisticated devices measure changes in the skin conductance that passes over the skin to get an idea of your stress levels.

The Professional Viewpoint

A data scientist says that in general for smartwatches, it's a "delicate equilibrium" - while the ever-evolving tech could potentially aid early diagnosis, "spotting abnormalities before we show symptoms", it could also turn us watch wearers into the "concerned but fine".

He points out that some of the latest wearables can conduct tests like medical-grade monitoring, which regularly monitor how normal the heart is. They can flag if someone is experiencing an irregular rhythm, where there is abnormal signals in the heart causing an arrhythmia.

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 vulnerable of a stroke in the years to come.

But how to make sense of these readings is not straightforward. The expert fears that as further capabilities are incorporated, people may struggle to fully understand their data.

"I'm not entirely convinced that having the capacity to monitor so much data is such a good idea," he says.

A professor focusing on cardiology concurs. A study into the effect 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 "had a higher tendency to use doctor's time".

She observed a pattern with her patients - they spotted a worrying figure on their watch. They felt anxious. Their pulse went up. They got more worried. They re-examined the data, and their reading rose further.

"If we see numbers about ourselves that we don't really understand then, of course, we are going to want to know more," the psychologist says. "We monitor, we check again - it becomes a feedback loop."