Not sure why anyone is surprised. This is what our society has become. No one respects anyone or anything. Everyone is too caught up in their world, their drama, their music, their space, etc. It's all about me. Look at me on the Internet, listen to me talk loud on my cellphone so everyone knows how important I am, and so on. I am probably one of the older guys on the board, and it pains me when things like this happen. However, I have learned to let it roll off my back. If I didn't, I would be in an insane asylum.
In my experience, it's mostly a Boston/North East societal thing. I never even noticed this phenomena until I visited North Carolina for the first time a few years ago; I just took for granted that was the way people are and had always been. I was visiting a friend down there who attends Duke U. He was a co-worker of min a few years back in the north shore, originally from Chicago, and would gripe often about how self-centered and unfriendly Boston people were. I agreed with him to an extent, but hadn't been outside the area enough to really understand it like he did. Then I went to NC, and met some of his friends. I was seriously blown away by how many questions they would ask me during conversation and how genuinely interested they were to converse with me. Not talk at me, but converse with me. It was about a year later than I spent a few months living in Guatemala and found the same thing true about many other people I met from Europe, Australia, and other parts of the US. (I was too interested to listen to people from Central American talk about their experiences to allow myself to actually share anything.)
I do think it's more prevalent in Boston/North East than elsewhere, but I do agree with vinnie that it is a product of "Generation Me" as well. Look at facebook - what was originally a "social network" which was a great means of communication is now dominated by this "news feed" of people "sharing" what they are doing with a whole bunch of people who largely don't give a crap.
Whenever I travel elsewhere in the country it always blows me away how much more friendly and open people are than in our little corner of the world. With a few exceptions. People in Santa Fe are obnoxious. San Fran... similar to Boston.
Charleston, Twin Cities, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio, San Diego: you're good to go.
I've been to a quite a few far away cities/states as well. I've found people in the south to be very cordial. Tennessee is a great place. I was making a lay-over in atlanta(of course) one time and I lost a piece of luggage that had all of my 8month olds stuff in it, clothers, medicine, diapers, forumla etc etc.
I asked dozens of people of different races, ages etc. Regardless if it was some 17y/o kid who was kinda thugged out, or some older guy in a suit, everyone was very pleasant and helpful in trying to find my bag. Two young kids, one white, one black ended up finding my bag somewhere else in the airport and tracked me down to return it to me.
I couldn't believe how nice everyone was, from the other travelers, maintenence workers to the flight attendants and security staff, everyone I met in atlanta was awesome.
Also living in Boston i've lost my wallet 3 times, each time with money and bank cards in it. Every single time I lost it it showed up in my mailbox 3-4 days later. The money was always there!
I live in southern california now. I dont think people are any nicer here than they are in Boston. Down in San Diego, people are a bit more pleasant tho, up north as well.
I fell asleep in a chicago airport one time during a blizzard and I woke up with a blanket on me lol. That was kinda wierd, but nice of someone.