There are some evident culprits (Score 1)

Relate this to some recent research that, unsurprisingly, proved how racist people are less empathic towards people of other races. Empathy is a vital indicator of many other human characteristics being its premise. I perceive it falling, clearly, in Italy (trust me, I have sufficient experience with young people); but... I cannot honestly tell why it does so sharply. I can point some obvious causes; for instance, the raise of families with a single child. Single children usually too late discover they're not the centre of the world. As for computer gaming, when I was young, I played with my ZX Spectrum and my classmates had it too, or they had the Commodore 64. We played a lot, honestly, so I cannot think of video gaming as an issue.
But there is really one thing that is so evident that I cannot imagine why it so underestimated: I'm talking of the quality of TV series for children. [Living in Italy, I may miss some correct title]. Of course we had some police stuff, but think about "Eight is Enough", "Little House on the Prairie", even "My friend Arnold", though set in the world of rich people, really thaught you something. Families had problems, real problems; I mean, life was hard and shows were close to reality by many aspects, we really suffered of the sufference of figures in the show. Young people in the current TV shows for children live in a sort of colourful, forever-happy world. They get over any (ridiculous) problem in matter of minutes. They cannot acquire our children empathy because they are just meant to be happy and funny. I do not know about the USA panorama, but it is very difficult in Italy to make young people watch some TV show that really can tell them something.