I'll opine that while it is not hopeless once someone has reached the late teen years or adulthood, it is exceedingly difficult. Cast a net around you and find ten people who have made a late life turnaround for the better. I'll bet dollars to donuts that nine of them will fall into one of two categories.

1) were taught morals and principles as children but ignored it. Life experience awakened in them a need for such principles to guide them.

2) were raised under principles and morals and lived by them until the wanderlust of early adulthood came upon them. Now in midlife, they are returning to values they once held.

The one in ten who seeks after something intangible to better himself and the world around without previous exposure to the concept him is rare. They are also the most likely to be able to give you insight into what reaches the mind of an uncivilized cretin posing as a member of modern society and how to goad him or her into stepping onto the road to social functioning.

I would also add that the condition I see, which is what you are describing, is a principle of self entertainment at the cost of actual social interaction. We tolerated it because the gadgets were new. Now it has become entrenched as habit and on its way to becoming the new norm. Those of us who have conversations using actual words (rather than LOL and TTFN) are slowly becoming anachronisms.

When I was a kid, Dad came home from work and turned off the television. It was time to interact with the whole family together. The modern man sits on his sofa staring at his ipad, talking on his smartphone and surfing the internet. All the while mumbling "yeah, whatever. Go ask your mother" while the house, and family, fall apart around him.

I'll have the gall to quote myself:
What you are seeing is, in my opinion, the same we are seeing here in the U.S. in the current Jr. High and younger kids. The behavior expected of them is minimal, the underlying principle is one of self gratification at the expense of others, or even the expense of ones' future. They are learning the lesson well. Interaction with another human being has become an option, not a requirement to function in society. Enter the ipod and smartphone into evidence.