Plagued by stress, a growing number of people in modern society say they think time is becoming more precious than money and they’re trying to slow down. People say they have become worn down. But the exhaustion represents a paradox. They are extraordinarily stressed out even though they make more money, have more leisure time, and enjoy more time-saving and efficient technology than adults did a generation ago. The reasons underlying this paradox are varied. Many people, especially married women, are working longer at their jobs now than they were then although they have cut back on the amount of work they do around home. The anxieties wrought by the increasingly competitive global economy also have put many on edge, not to mention the fact that work can intrude via fax, E-mail or cellular phone anywhere, from the living room to the family minivan.

In addition, analysts have found that the proliferation of labor-saving devices in the home makes it easier for folks to fret more about how to spend their free time an option they largely lacked as recently as 50 years ago. Moreover, some of the stress arises from a burgeoning consumerist sense of entitlement and expectation about what life ought to provide. Finally, there’s the thesis of economist Stefan Linder, who argued in a book called ‘The Harried Leisure Class’ that affluence itself engendered “an increasing scarcity of time”. His argument: Productivity increases the “value” of time spent at work, and folks who want to maximize their worth then feel they should work more.

Now, a growing number of citizens have begun to unplug their lives from a system that they feel leaves little or no time to recharge. They have begun to retreat into their private corners, demanding at least some quiet time.