First, some background on myself (If you don't care, feel free to skip down to "My Opinion"):

I was reared in the "If the child acts up, it must be ADD" era, otherwise known as the late 1980s. Being diagnosed as "intelligent", yet "socially awkward", as well as a slurry of other things, most of which were a result of my daydreaming, and temper - I was given various drugs for this "disease."

Basically, they put a kid on speed, and wondered why he was up all night, and managing to go from a lower-end (on the right) bell curve, down to "standard", finally ending up in the "why even bother" mindset which manages to affect many children in mid/later highschool.

It was later discussed that I might have Asperger's, but no further testing was done in this vein - being that I dropped out of school and moved to another state. When I moved back to complete my high school diploma, none of this was discussed, or even bothered with due to my current home status being below sub-par.

I'm now nearly 30, and still socially awkward; but mostly because I choose to be - I don't enjoy being surrounded my more than a few people at a time, and due to an abusive childhood tend to steer away from work and social things which may be viewed as 'aggressive'.

My Opinion:

I believe the issue is a combination of changing social trends, the stronger emotional influence of the media, and the advancements in technology.

If you ever have the (dis)pleasure of sitting through an older television show, such as "I Love Lucy", or anything more than twenty years ago, you'll notice that despite working around the same simple plot line that is often used today, the guise of entertainment is less about the drama of the story, and the plot can last the whole (if not several) episodes.

The way things are often presented today are in a "quick-fire" method, where several things are forced upon the viewer at once. These shows often attempt to drastically "tug the heart strings" of the viewer, causing them to become engrossed with a character, and if that doesn't work, they often work in some other factor in an attempt to continue to gain an audience. This is done in several seconds, if not several minutes time. Children reared upon this (raised on television's social pulp) learn that emotions, as well as solutions can often be fast; and not to dewll upon an emotion, or a subject which does not amuse them - after all, it's fairly unimportant.

Rather than being raised with goals or purposes and having a lack of a parental figure during the child's youth, they're often turned to learn their earlier life's lessons this way. Sure, it's a long step from "Barney" to "E.R.", but cartoons often swiftly bridge this gap.

Not to blame this entirely on television, the world has changed within the last few decades than I could even imagine. In the 1980s, if you wanted to amuse yourself with music, you either turned on the radio, listened to a cassette, or (if you were lucky), MTV. Today, we have personal music playing devices which are capable of things which supercomputers were incapable of, then.

The internet slowly turned from an experimental educational system into a commercial product. In the 1980s, to be on the internet, you were (generally) either a scolar, an educator, or building ARPANET. In 1992, I was on the Internet through the local university - It was an amazing tool I could use to communicate with others (almost anywhere in the world), and obtain information on various subjects.

The internet is now a cesspool of commercial ventures, most notibly pornography. Being that pornography is (sadly) quite a driving force between technology, it was required that things be faster, moving from a single dial-in BBS with one or two GIF files (which often took hours) to download to an instantenous cornucopia of amusement.

This has perpetuated itself through (now) our children, as well as ourselves. Think of the last time you were annoyed when stuck at a red light, and you were capable of purcasing an item without expecting to be able to track it's progress immediately.

Anyway, this is entirely speculation, but remember it is entirely my own personal view.