Wake-up call for a non-stop world

So great is the problem that it's considered a public health epidemic. As of last month, 5.13 billion people in the world owned mobile devices – 66.5% of the world's population. And it's growing. Generation Z (people born between the mid-1990s and the early 2000s) is the demographic that owns the most smartphones; some 98% own a smartphone and 52% claim it is their most valuable asset.

It's estimated that an average person spends two hours and 52 minutes per day on their mobile device. About 22% of users check their phone every five minutes. So it's not just an epidemic – it's also an addiction.

In London until February 23, 2020, Somerset House's latest exhibition 24/7, inspired by the book 24/7: Late Capitalism and the Ends of Sleep by essayist Jonathan Carey, takes visitors on a journey through five zones based on the tensions of life in a non-stop world. New technologies have blurred the boundaries between day and night, activity and rest, the human and the machine, work and leisure, and the individual and the collective.

Interestingly, the beginnings of this 24/7 culture can be traced back to the Industrial Revolution, with workers being rostered around the clock. The distinction between day and night effectively eroded, disrupting the body's natural rhythms – and that has intensified during the Information Age.