warnings
The following post contains mentions of mental health and wellbeing
Introduction
First, let me begin this post by saying smartwatches did not create this problem. The smartphone did. However, smartwatches have made it significantly worse, introduced new issues and worst of all, companies have learned to prophet from it.
the problem
Notifications
The problem begins with push notifications. Those little banners that drop down to inform you of the latest post on your favourite social media or the trendiest new thing you absolutely have to buy. Over the years since their inseption, they have become the main reason that people check their smartphones. The average person uses their smartphone for 4.8 hours a day, and much of this usage is created by receiving a notification.
Upon their introduction, one of the marketing points companies used for smartwatches was that, you could, in theory, keep up with the notifications that were most important to you right from your wrist, and filter out ones that weren't. In pratice, this didn't happen, with most people not filtering the notifications that appear on their watch, and checking them every time they feel that slight vibration. The result of this is that many people now suffer from anxiety when they can't keep up with the latest happenings in their social circles when without internet.
Health features
The second major revolution smartwatches introduced were their wide variety of health and fitness tracking capabilities. Fitness devices existed previously, for monitoring heartrate, steps, etc, but the smartwatch brought these metrics to the masses. Combined with trends, AI, and even more advanced features like the ability to get ECG reports and track your blood oxygen levels, these devices have been used by people to detect possible illness and in some cases have saved lives.
None of this is bad (so long as the user's privacy is respected, a different topic entirely) when considered from the life-saving angle. The problem comes from us. We check these metrics so frequently that we give ourselves anxiety doing it.
the combined problem
These 2 features together mean that we are constantly glancing at our wrists for one thing or another. When we see a health trend change, we become ancious it could be a sign of a problem. When we get a notification, we feel as though we must check it because it could be important. Without the smartwatch, smartphones would have still been adicting, but perhaps not to this extent. They would not have had access to a lot of the data watches do, like being able to constantly measure your heartrate, determine your level of stress and prompt you that you need to exercise more. We would not be checkign our notifications as much, as in some instances it would be incredibly inconvenient to do so.
The prophet, aka the anxiety paradox
Companies realised very quickly what was happening. People were paying very close atention now to their health and fitness data, in ways they hadn't before. These people were then telling others about their experience, and saying how much better they felt after making life improvements suggested by their activity reports. Then, they would feel unwell, and notice changes in their health metrics and tell people about that too. Pretty soon, people were feelign ancious about their metrics changing, and those without smartwatches were feeling ancious that they might be missing something very important. So now, when a company unvales a new wearable, they always include stories that all have one thing in common, and that is that without their previous generation smartwatch, someone would have never known about a health condition, or been lost, or been unable to contact someone when they needed it. Due to the number of stories that these companies show, people are lead to believe that they must have one of these devices. Once they have one, the next year, they are lead to believe that they must upgrade to a new device, to avoid missing out on some new life changing functionality
Conclusion
While I don't doubt these products have changed lives and will continue to do so, we need to examine if all the changes they bring about are for the better. They have saved lives, I don't doubt that, but they also have put people at risk, increasing stress and worsening mental health of the people using them, and the people not.
Companies should acknowledge that their smartwatches are not medical devices, and make it very clear in their marketing material that a slight change in health and fitness trends does not immediately mean there is an urgent medical problem. They should also automatically filter the notifications received on smartwatches by default, filtering out some of the most harmful apps, like social media, email, or promotional content, leaving only messages, calls, and other important notifications, like that one that says your train will be late.
As for users of smartwatches and other wearables, use the filters available to you. Yes, consult a medical professional if you need one, but do not rely on your devices to tell you when that is the case.