Time is affected significantly by the spread of the Internet throughout
the world. On the one hand, the new communication technologies provide for
'round the clock' operation, threatening to obliterate time as a function
of a culture's sense of identity. On the other hand, the Internet enables
local cultures to resist the globalizing and homogenizing tide. The situation
points to a dilemma. Local cultures find it hard to resist integrating itself
with the world through the Internet, but at the same time they feel a real
need to protect and to promote their identities. This paper tries to show
that local cultures find the medium an appropriate and effective one in putting
forward their agenda. As the globalizing force signified by the Internet tends
to occur at a superficial level, different conceptions of time can coexist
at the same time. The emerging conception of time is thus characterized neither
by the pre-modern one of identification of time with nature, nor by the modern
one of an abstract entity pointing forward, but by a 'web' allowing for different
strands to go their own way while weaved together to create a coherent pattern,
and this is how the dilemma is resolved. A case study of the Thai conceptions
of time and the current debate on changing the time standard is presented
in order to illustrate the point.