Now that the holidays are over — along with the flowery talk about peace on Earth and goodwill toward men — it’s important to remember the suffering in the world and how far the human race still has to go before we reach the ideals of respect and dignity for all living beings.

Unfortunately, recent studies confirm that a growing number of college students are losing empathy for their fellow man. In a world that clearly needs more compassion, this loss is a shocking trend.

Studies conducted between 1979 and 2009 found that college students today have less empathy toward their peers than previous generations. The findings come from the study Changes in Dispositional Empathy in American College Students Over Time: A Meta-Analysis, authored by Sara Konrath, Edward H. O’Brien and Courtney Hsing.

For 30 years, 14,000 college students were surveyed in 72 separate studies. College students scored 40 percentage points lower on the empathy scale than their predecessors.

Compared with students of the late 70’s, today’s undergraduates are less likely to describe themselves as “soft-hearted” and less prone to agree with statements like: “I sometimes try to understand my friends better by imagining how things look from their perspective,” or “I often have tender, concerned feelings for people less fortunate than me.”

They are far more likely to admit that other people’s misfortunes usually don’t bother them.

Of the findings, Konrath said, “Many people see the current group of college students — sometimes called ‘Generation Me’ — as one of the most self-centered, narcissistic, competitive, confident and individualistic in recent history. We found the biggest drop in empathy after the year 2000.”

I would have substituted the word “individualistic” with “robotic,” based on my experience at UNM, but then again, I’m not a researcher.

Empathy is the ability to understand and sympathize with another person’s feelings and thoughts. It’s the capacity to put oneself in the shoes of others — not just as individuals, but entire groups of people and other living beings, especially those who are oppressed, threatened or exploited.

Empathy goes beyond just “feeling” however; it involves some level of understanding and compassion, and it extends to individuals, communities and even to other species.

A person’s capacity to feel empathy is primarily the result of family upbringing, social conditioning and personal history. The ability to empathize has been likened to a muscle: capable of growth, atrophy, disability and regeneration over time.

Empathy is at the heart of true human rationality because it goes to the very core of our moral values and our perception of justice. We wouldn’t want to live in a world without empathy.

As Mark Davis, a professor of Psychology at Eckerd College in Florida, put it: “Imagine if humans didn’t have the capacity for empathy. What would it mean if, in fact, we never gave a damn about what happened to other people? That’s an almost inconceivable world.”

Several factors were examined in an attempt to explain this phenomenon: our highly competitive, materialistic society; the role of the mass media; the stress of paying for college; and the ever-shrinking job market are just some of the causes associated with this huge drop in empathy.

Frequent exposure to violent media, such as video games, certainly plays a role in desensitizing young people to the suffering of others. It undoubtedly helps to keep the armed forces in business, but I would also say that America’s authoritarian, police-state mentality is now firmly entrenched in every aspect of the collective national psyche.

Military force invariably takes precedence over negotiation and compromise. College students today have grown up in a state of perpetual war. Our civil liberties have been severely restricted over the last decade and SWAT teams and riot squads are a fact of life.

The passive acceptance of Social Darwinism — “I’ve got mine, screw you” — has also clearly affected the youth of this country. We’re just now beginning to see the negative results.

Another factor contributing to lack of empathy — oddly enough — is the widespread, excessive use of social networks like Facebook and Myspace, where “friends” are too easily acquired and disposed of.

This increase in social isolation and lack of human interaction in the computer age overlaps with the drop in empathy, according to the researchers. In the past 30 years, Americans are more likely to live alone and less likely to join groups — from clubs and unions to student organizations and political parties.

Further studies have shown that this type of isolation, lack of face-to-face interaction and emotional connection contributes to the decline of empathy among college students.

It didn’t come as a surprise to the researchers that this growing emphasis on “me, me, me!” has been accompanied by a corresponding devaluation of others and an epidemic of narcissism in our society. Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) is far more common than researchers once thought.

One in four college students agreed with the majority of the items on a standard measurement of narcissistic traits. In data from yet another study of 37,000 college students, narcissistic personality disorders rose as fast as obesity rates.

A lot of the people I see on campus are hooked up to some sort of expensive electronic device, totally detached from the outside world. I’m convinced that this voluntary disconnection from reality is one of the deeper causes for the lack of empathy in many college students.

This generation is far more comfortable living in cyberspace than in real life, and our increasing dependence on technology has allowed human relationships to suffer. More technology certainly can’t fix that.

All of these wonderful gadgets are helping to isolate us from one another, instead of uniting us in the much-ballyhooed “global village.” College students are constantly aware of their friends’ and family’s needs, but all that connectivity doesn’t appear to translate into genuine concern for other people, or the world at large.

The good news is that a person’s ability to empathize can be enhanced through a variety of methods.

Empathy can increase when students are coached to develop their interpersonal skills and their ability to recognize other people’s emotions. Concerned educators can contribute a great deal to turning this trend around.

It would be wise to pay close attention to these developments and take corrective action before it‘s too late.