Srijan R Shetty wears a smartwatch 24/7. So do most people in his professional and social circles. And this has become a major annoyance for him. “People like us get a smartwatch primarily to track fitness,” says the 29-year-old software developer from Bengaluru. But soon they sync it with their other devices and, before they know it, they are taking calls, checking messages and emails and even typing out replies on their watch.
Meeting other smartwatch users in person can be quite off-putting these days, says Shetty. “I’ve noticed that people are generally irritable when they have their smartwatch notifications, especially Slack, on. They keep looking at their watch to check notifications and lose track of what you are saying,” he adds. “Unless you confront them, which I have in the past, they don’t even realise what they are doing and that it can come across as quite rude.”
Even as people grapple with smartphone addiction, smartwatch addiction is here, leading some users to make serious changes to their habits —from turning off notifications to getting rid of the device altogether. India has to be watchful of this phenomenon because of the growing popularity of the wearable gadget in this market. Approximately 30.7 million smartwatch shipments registered in India in 2022, as per IDC’s India Monthly Wearable Device Tracker report released earlier this year.
According to tech research firm Counterpoint, India’s market share in smartwatch shipment went from a mere 9% in 2021 to roughly 21% by the end of 2022. India pipped North America to become the largest market for smartwatches in Q3 of 2022, Counterpoint’s report said. This was largely powered by the success of homegrown brands like Noise and Fire-Boltt. Apple Watch, meanwhile, has the largest market share (43%) among smartwatches globally.
Smartwatch addiction hits differently compared with smartphone addiction because “while you can physically disconnect from a phone, the watch is tied to your body”, says Avneet Kaur, a counselling psychologist with Kaha Mind in Bengaluru. Some can’t let go of checking their smartwatches even during therapy sessions, she says. “It can be so distracting that even I have lost track of what I was saying in some of those situations,” she adds. Kaur works with young adults on concerns related to health, lifestyle and body image.
Incessantly checking your smartwatch almost becomes an involuntary exercise. Take Kshitij Tarkas. The 27-year-old strategy consultant from Mumbai is not addicted to his smartwatch, he claims. “I haven’t worn it for three days now because the battery is out of charge. But I check my watch during meetings because it seems quick and natural,” he says. “Checking the phone is a much longer process involving multiple steps which feels more intrusive.”
Most people, including Tarkas, buy a smartwatch to reduce their smartphone usage as the watch allows them to check notifications without sucking them into the abyss of mindless (doom)scrolling. What has happened is that “instead of being anxious about notifications piling up on the phone, you are anxious about them piling up on an even tinier screen,” says Armaan Dua, 26, a social media manager from Mumbai. Dua notes how smartwatches began as fitness bands without a screen. You could sync them to get information on your phone. “Now, it’s difficult to find one that doesn’t have a screen. All fitness bands today seem to be smartwatches,” he says. Dua changed his smartwatch’s notification alert setting to ‘vibrate’ at one point. Alerting signals like ‘glow’ or ‘sound’ were intrusive, he thought, whereas “vibration is only between the device and me”. But this meant that his wrist would incessantly vibrate.
“There were days I would wake up with a start because I thought my wrist was buzzing,” he recalls. Dua’s experience points to the need to study how smartwatches affect our bodies even as they collect and share health related data. Kaur says that studying the impact of smartwatch addiction on our body is imperative because many people rely on its quantitative data to watch their health, almost at
the cost of ignoring subjective signals their body sends them. “Is my watch telling me I’m stressed or am I feeling stressed? Did I not sleep well or is my watch telling me I didn’t? The watch that’s supposed to make you more aware of your body can also make you more disconnected from it,” she says, underscoring the need to better navigate this device. Last month, Dua switched to a “normal” watch after wearing a smartwatch for over two years.
“My friends tell me they have seen an astronomical difference in me since then, I’ve become more present without the constant wrist vibration,” he says, adding that he, too, feels “less anxious, less brain-fogged”. Meanwhile, Shetty has turned off most notifications on his smartwatch and tries to use it for fitness-tracking only.
While he may not be entirely thrilled with how smartwatches have taken over everyone’s life around him, his spouse Purnima Sachdeva (also a smartwatch user), is grateful that he continues to wear one round the clock. “One night, his watch started beeping and we found out that his heart rate had dropped significantly,” she recalls. “He had been stressed about work at that time. I’m glad for that alert because it helped us act on time,” she says.
