從前，我們以為技術發展會使我們的生活變得更安逸。那時我們覺得機器會替代我們工作，我們則有越來越多的時間休閑娛樂。
2 But instead of liberating us, technologyhas enslaved us. Innovations are occurringat a bewildering rate: as many now arrivein a year as once arrived in a millennium.And as each invention arrives, it eats further into our time.
但技術發展沒有把我們解放出來，而是使我們成為奴隸。新技術紛至沓來，令人目不暇接:壹-年湧現的技術創新相當於以前壹千年。而每壹項新發明問世，就進壹步吞噬我們的光陰。
3 The motorcar, for example, promisedunimaginable levels of personal mobility.But now, traffic in cities moves more slowly than it did in the days of the horse-drawn carriage, and we waste our livesstuck in traffic jams.
比如，汽車曾使我們希望個人出行會方便得讓人難以想象。可如今，城市車輛運行得比馬車時代還要慢，我們因交通堵塞而困在車內，徒然浪費生命。
4 The aircraft promised new horizons,too. The trouble is, it delivered them. Itsvery existence created a demand for time-consuming journeys that we would neverpreviously have dreamed of undertaking -the transatlantic shopping expedition, forexample, or the trip to a convention on theother side of the world.飛機也曾有可能為我們拓展新天地。問題是，飛機提供了新的天地。其存在本身產生了對耗時的長途旅行的需求，這種旅行，如越洋購物，或遠道前往地球的另壹半參加會議，以前我們是根本無法想象
5 In most cases, technology has not savedtime, but enabled us to do more things. Inthe home, washing machines promised tofree women from having to toil over thelaundry. In reality, they encouraged us tochange our clothes daily instead of weekly,creating seven times as much washing and ironing. Similarly, the weekly bath hasbeen replaced by the daily shower,
multiplying the hours spent on personal grooming.
在大多數情況下，技術發展並未節省時間，而是使我們做更多事。在家裏，洗衣機使婦女擺脫繁重的洗衣勞作。但事實上，它們促使我們每天，而不是每星期換壹次衣服，這就使熨洗衣物的工作量變成原來的7倍。同樣地，每周壹次，的沐浴為每日壹次的淋浴所代替，使得用於個人穿著打扮的時間大大增加。
6 Meanwhile, technology has not onlyallowed work to spread into our leisure
time - the laptop-on-the-beach syndrome -- but added the new burden of dealing withfaxes, e-mails and voicemails. It has alsoprovided us with the opportunity to spendhours fixing software glitches on our
personal computers or flling our headswith useless information from the Internet.
與此同時，技術發展不僅聽任工作侵入我們的閑暇時間--帶著便攜式電腦去海灘綜合癥--而且添加了收發傳真、電子郵件和.語音郵件這些新的負擔。技術發展還向我們提供機會，在個人電腦上壹連幾小時處理軟件故障，或把因特網上那些無用的信息塞進自己的大腦。
7 Technology apart, the Internet pointsthe way to a second reason why we feel sotime-pressed: the information explosion.
除去技術發展，因特網指出了我們為何感到時間如此緊迫的第二個原因:信息爆炸。
8 A couple of centuries ago, nearly all theworld's accumulated learning could be
contained in the heads of a few
philosophers. Today, those heads couldnot hope to accommodate more than atiny fraction of the information generatedin a single day.
幾個世紀以前，人類積累的幾乎所有知識都能裝在若幹哲人的大腦之中。如今，這些大腦休想容納下壹天中產生的新信息中的小小壹部分。
9 News, facts and opinions pour in from every corner of the world. The television set offers 150 channels. There are millionsof Internet sites. Magazines, books and CD-ROMs proliferate.
各種消息、事實和見解從世界各個角落大量湧入。電視機能收到1 50個頻道。因特網網址多達千百萬。雜誌、書籍和光盤只讀存儲器的數量也激增。
10 "In the whole world of scholarship,there were only a handful of scientificjournals in the 1 8th century, and the publication of a book was an event," saysEdward Wilson, honorary curator in entomology at Harvard University's museum of comparative zoology. "Now, I find myself subscribing to 60 or 70 journals or magazines just to keep me upwith what amounts to a minute proportionof the expanding frontiers of scholarship."“在18世紀，整個國際學術界總***只有屈指可數的幾家科學刊物，出版壹本書是件了不起的大事，”哈佛大學比較動物學博物館昆蟲館名譽館長愛德華威爾遜說。“如今,我本人就訂閱了60或70種期刊雜誌，以便自己跟上不斷拓展的學術前沿中壹個微小部分的發展動向。”
11 There is another reason for ourincreased time stress levels, t0o: risingprosperity. As ever-larger quantities ofgoods and services are produced, theyhave to be consumed. Driven on by advertising, we do our best to oblige: webuy more, travel more and play more, butwe struggle to keep up. So we suffer fromwhat Wilson calls discontent with superabundance - the confusion of endlesschoice.
我們產生日益加重的時間緊迫感還有壹個原因:日漸繁榮富足。由於生產的物品與提供的服務越來越多,我們必須去消費在廣告的推動下，我們努力照辦:我們多多購買多多旅遊多多玩兒，但得盡力堅持下去。於是我們就深受威爾遜所謂的對極大富足不滿之苦壹-即無休止的選擇所造成的困惑。
12 Of course, not everyone is overstressed. "It's a convenient shorthandto say we're all time-starved, but we haveto remember that it only applies to, say,half the population," says Michael Willmott, director of the Future Foundation,a London research company.
當然，並非人人感到時間過度緊迫。“說我們都缺少時間只是隨意講講,我們應該記住，這種說法大約只適用於壹半人，”未來基金公司--壹家倫敦研究公司--的經理邁克爾威爾莫特說。
13 "You've got people retiring early,you've got the unemployed, you've got involved in the economy who don't have this situation at all. If you're unemployed,your problem is that you've got too muchtime, not too little."
“有些人早早退休了，有些人失業了，有些人或許只與經濟活動沾點邊，根本不會有這種情況。如果失業了，那妳的問題就是時間太多，而不是太少。”
14 Paul Edwards, chairman of the
London-based Henley Centre forecastinggroup, points out that the feeling of pressures can also be exaggerated, orself-imposed. "Everyone talks about it somuch that about 50 percent of unemployed or retired people will tell youthey never have enough time to get thingsdone," he says. "It's almost got to the pointwhere there's stress envy. If you're not
stressed, you're not succeeding. Everyone wants to have a little bit of this stress to show they 're an important person."
總部設在倫敦的亨利中心預測小組組長保羅愛德華茲指出，壓力感也可能被誇大，或者被強加於自身。“人人都大談壓力，以至於多達半數的失業者或退休人員都會跟妳說，他們根本來不及把事情做完，”他說。“這幾乎是到了羨慕壓力的程度。沒有感到有壓力，就不是成功者。人人都想表現幾分時間緊迫感，以顯示自己的重要。”
15 There is another aspect to all of thistoo. Hour-by-hour logs kept by thousandsof volunteers over the decades have
shown that, in the U.K. , working hours
have risen only slightly in the last 10 years,and in the U.S., they have actually fallen -even for those in professional and
executive jobs, where the perceptions ofstress are highest.
這壹切還有另外壹個方面。幾十年來由數千名誌願者所作的鐘點日誌表明，英國在最近十年中工作時間只略微增加，而在美國，即使對工作壓力最大的專業人士和管理人員而言，工作時間實際上減少了。
16 In the U.S., John Robinson, professorof sociology at the University of Maryland,and Geoffrey Godbey, professor of leisurestudies at Penn State University foundthat, since the mid-1960s, the averageAmerican had gained five hours a week infree time - that is, time left after working, .sleeping, commuting, caring for childrenand doing the chores.
在美國，馬裏蘭大學社會學教授約翰:魯賓遜和賓夕法尼亞州立大學研究閑暇問題的教授傑弗裏戈德比發現，自20世紀60年代中期以來，普通美國人每周增加了5小時空.余時間，即工作、睡眠、乘車上下班、照料孩子和家務勞動之余的時間。.
17 The gains, however, were unevenlydistributed. The Deople who benefited the distributed. The people who benefited themost were singles and empty-nesters.Those who gained the least - less than anhour - were working couples with pre-
school children, perhaps reflecting thetrend for parents to spend more timenurturing their offspring.
但增加的時間分配得並不均勻。受惠最多的是未婚者和子女不在身邊的人。得益最少的--增加了不足1個小時--是有學前子女的雙職工夫婦，這或許反映了父母在撫養子女方面花費更多時間這---傾向。
18 There is, of course, a gender issuehere, too. Advances in household appliances may have encouraged womento take paying jobs: but as we have alreadynoted, technology did not end householdchores. As a result, we see appalling inequalities in the distribution of free timebetween the sexes. According to the Henley Centre, working fathers in the U. K.average 48 hours of free time a week.Working mothers get 14.
這裏當然也存在著性別問題。家用器具的更新換代或許鼓勵婦女去做有報酬的工作，但正如我們已經註意到的，技術發展並沒有掃除家務雜活。其結果是，我們發現男女空余時間的分配驚人地不平等。據亨利中心的調查，在英國，有工作的父親平均每周有48小時的空余時間。有工作的母親只有14小時。
19 Inequalities apart, the perception ofthe time famine is widespread, and hasprovoked a variety of reactions. One is anattempt to gain the largest possible
amount of satisfaction from the smallestpossible investment of time. People todaywant fast food, sound bytes and instantgratification. And they become upset whentime is wasted.
除去不平等，缺乏時間的感覺也普遍存在，並引起了各種反應。反應之壹是試圖投入最少的時間以獲取最大的滿足。如今人們需要快餐，需要電臺、電視臺播放簡短片斷，還要即刻得到滿足。時間壹旦被浪費，人們就會很不高興。
20 "People talk about quality time. Theywant perfect moments," says the HenleyCentre's Edwards. "If you take your kids toa movie and McDonald's and it's not
perfect, you've wasted an afternoon, andit's a sense that you' ve lost something precious. If you lose some money you canearn some more, but if you waste time you can never get it back."
“人們談論著質量時間。他們需要最佳時光，”亨利中心的愛德華茲說。“如果妳帶孩子去看電影或去麥當勞，但度過的時光並不甜美，妳浪費了壹個下午，感覺就像是妳丟失了寶貴物品。錢丟失了還能掙回來但寸間浪費了就再也無法追回。來，但時間浪費了就再也無法追回。”
21 People are also trying to buy time.Anything that helps streamline our lives isa growth market. One example is whatAmericans call concierge services -domestic help, childcare, gardening anddecorating. And on-line retailers are seeingbig increases in sales - though not, as yet,profits.
人們還試圖購買時間。任何能幫助我們提高生活效率的事物都有越做越大的市場。美國人所謂的家政服務--做家務，帶孩子，修剪花木，居家裝飾壹-即為壹例。網.上零售商在看著銷售額大幅增長--雖然利潤尚未同樣大幅增長。
22 A third reaction to time famine hasbeen the growth of the work-life debate.You hear more about people taking earlyretirement or giving up high pressure jobsin favour of occupations with shorter in favour of occupations with shorterworking hours. And bodies such as Britain's National Work-L ife Forum havesprung up, urging employers to end thelong-hours culture among managers andto adopt family-friendly working policies.
對時間匱乏的第三個反應是有關人的壹生應該_工作多少年的爭論增多。妳比過去更常聽到人們談論早早退休，談論放棄壓力大的工作去從事工作時間短的工作。諸如英國全國工作年限論壇這樣的機構像雨後春筍般出現了，敦促雇主終止讓管理人員長時間加班的做法，而采取能適應家庭生活的工作方式。
23 The trouble with all these reactions isthat liberating time - whether by makingbetter use of it, buying it from others orreducing the amount spent at work - isfutile if the hours gained are immediatelydiverted to other purposes.
所有這些反應的問題在於，把時間解放出來--無論是靠更充分地利用時間，靠購買他人的時間，還是靠縮短工作時間--是沒有意義的，如果贏得的時間又即刻被用於其他目的。
24 As Godbey points out, the stress wefeel arises not from a shortage of time, butfrom the surfeit of things we try to craminto it. "It's the kid in the candy store," hesays. "There's just so many good things todo. The array of choices is stunning. Ourfree time is increasing, but not as fast asour sense of the necessary.
正如戈德比所指出的，我們的緊張感並非源於時間短缺，而是因為我們試圖在- -個個時段中塞入過多的內容。“就像糖果店裏的孩子，”他說，“有那麽多美好的事情要做。選擇之多,令人眼花繚亂。我們的空，余時間在增加，但其速度跟不上我們心中日益增多的必須做的事。”
25 A more successful remedy may lie inunderstanding the problem rather thanevading it.
更有效的解決方式或許在於去理解這- -問題，而不是回避這- -問題。
26 Before the in