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The Internet, E-commerce and globalizationare making a new economic era possible. In the future, capitalist markets willlargely be replaced by a new kind of economic system based on networkedrelationships, contractual arrangements and access rights. Has the quality of our lives at work, athome and in our communities increased in direct proportion to all the newInternet and business-to-business Internet services being introduced into ourlives? I have asked this question of hundreds of CEOS and corporate executivesin Europe and the United States. Surprisingly, virtually everyone hassaid,No, quite contrary. The very people responsible for usheringin what some have called a technological renaissance say they areworking longer hours, feel more stressed, are more impatient, and are even lesscivil in their dealings with colleagues and friends--not to mention strangers.And whats more revealing, they place much of the blame on the very sametechnologies they are so aggressively championing. The techno gurus (领袖) promised us that access would make life more convenient and giveus more time. Instead, the very technological wonders that were supposed toliberate us have begun to enslave us in a web of connections from which thereseems to be no easy escape. If an earlier generation was preoccupiedwith the quest to enclose a vast geographic frontier, the .com generation, itseems, is more caught up in the colonization of time. Every spare moment of ourtime is being filled with some form of commercial connection, making timeitself the most scarce of all resources. Our e-mail, voice mail and cellphones, our 24-hour Interact news and entertainment all seize for ourattention. | 
