Entitled Teens

I've seen a number of teenagers lately who are surprisingly demanding and entitled in Northwest Arkansas.   I detect a deterioration in the level of gratitude in teens among the middle class.  I think this is perpetuated by the complete absence of a basic sense of real stress and struggle.  Teens are living much of their life in an artificial bubble protected from the reality.  They are too busy rushing to the next practice, ball game, recital, dress rehearsal, extra credit session to even notice that there are other people to be concerned about.  Then they are glued to their phone, plugged into their iPod, checking who liked their status update, or killing Nazi zombies with all their cyber friends online. I've seen 8 year olds with iPhones in my office playing who-knows which version of Angry Birds.  I've seen working class families with 4 kids who each have a Nintendo 3DS.  What is going on?  Do these kids not know how to take turns, to wait for Santa, to not answer that text right now.

How can we increase the gratitude and reduce the entitlement?
Some ideas:
1.  Decreased screen time.  Demand boundaries for video games, handhelds, phones, texting.   Have family time where no one (that means you dad) is texting, checking emails.  Turn that off!
2.  Play boring old board games, yard darts, badminton
3.  Help someone less fortunate, volunteer with your kids at the animal shelter, homeless shelter
4.  Model gratitude for your kids.
5.  Underschedule.  It's good to be bored.  It's good to think without distraction.  It's good to lay in a hammock, under a tree, climb a tree, chop a tree, build a fire, roast marshmallows, tell ghost stories.
Millions of years of human evolution occurred with fire as our only light.  We had only voices, ears, eye contact and body language as our primary communication.  Relying on the hardware that nature created might help us be less addicted to the human technology that seems to be eroding families.