Loud music, lights and a lot of people. It’s not a nightclub - but a 24 hour gym - and it’s where younger generations are choosing to spend their time and money.

More focused on their health and wellbeing, Gen Z of legal drinking age are said to value exercise over a visit to the pub and should they be tempted into the occasional evening out they prefer ‘activity-led’ socialising such as mini golf, games or karaoke bars says the research.

It might be music to the ears of a struggling NHS or the police - who probably spent far too much of their valuable time scraping my generation from sticky floors - but people giving-up nights out in favour of the fitness studio risks putting the future of our pub and restaurant trade in mortal danger.

And a quick scan of my local at 8pm this Saturday suggested it might already be true.

There were a few older chaps who had hung back for a celebratory beer having watched England pip France to an emphatic Six Nations win.

A large group sat along the back debating this year’s holiday plans as 60th birthday balloons bobbed from their chairs and a few other tables were dotted with couples quietly eating dinner or sharing a bottle of wine.

The pub and restaurant - thankfully for a Saturday - wasn’t empty but neither was there a single customer probably born after 1990 unless we count the waitress.

The number of 24-hour licences held by pubs, bars and nightclubs in London has fallen by two-thirds in four years, say Home Office figures, to fewer than 60 as habits have changed. The number of 24-hour gyms however, now runs into the hundreds.

Kent perhaps too has seen more fitness studios open in town centres than new pubs or nightclubs since the end of the pandemic?

Reportedly also being rubbed out is the social norm of crowding around a bar and sharing casual banter with fellow customers until you catch a server’s eye. Younger people are said to prefer queuing alone, in single file, in the same way you’d order a takeaway coffee.

Maybe so much instant messaging by phone has just left everyone with significantly less chat?

And yet the UK’s under 30s are reportedly some of the unhappiest in Europe suffering from deep feelings of social disconnection.

Perhaps pubs will adapt to capture the hearts of a health-conscious new audience who prefer early morning runs to nights out until the early hours and desire an ‘experience’ (and a good photo for the internet) when they spend time and money going out.

But I hope these young customers can also appreciate the health benefits that come from sitting around a table face-to-face with your mates before it’s too late.