Study: Scientists Find a 48% Decline in Empathy Among American College Students over Four Decades
In a society that prides itself on rugged individualism and the pursuit of happiness, we find ourselves confronted with a most peculiar and alarming development. The land of the free and the home of the brave, it seems, is rapidly becoming the land of the self-absorbed and the home of the emotionally stunted.
A recent study, which one might be tempted to dismiss as yet another academic exercise in stating the blindingly obvious, has revealed a staggering 48% decline in empathy among American college students over four decades. This is not merely a statistical blip, dear reader, but a damning indictment of our collective failure to nurture the very quality that separates us from the beasts — or perhaps, more accurately, from the machines we so eagerly embrace.
One can almost hear the ghost of de Tocqueville whispering, “I told you so,” as we witness the dark side of American individualism…