Calm your mind and make friends

Something i have always struggled with is our inability to find peace within ourselves, everyone strives for it but few seem to find it.
WHY?

What is that makes it so difficult to find inner peace or be able to calm our minds and bodies, surely it cant be that difficult.
Perhaps it is, can we find true peace in todays society what with social networking, bbming (not a real word i am sure), texting, tweeting, liking, sharing, +1ing (another fake word), tumbling and the rest the list seems endless.

If we were to be honest with ourselves do we need all these things in our life, i know what your saying but how do I keep in touch with friends and family, what happened to paper and pen or a phone call?
Yes it does make it easier and sharing photos and funny videos from around the globe is great, and i would not want to stiffle that.

But is there a bigger picture here, is our inability to switch of our minds and focus on who we are the problem, are we constantly looking for ways to satisfy our cravings or need for acceptance, is this a particulary western culture that has festered or is it a worldwide problem?

Consider the UK and Japan, in the Uk over 77% of homes in 2011 had intenet access, consider my household we have 3 pc's, 1 Playstation and 4 mobile phones all capable of internet access, do we need all this?
Consider Japan, in 2010 only 56% of the population were accessing sns (social networking sites), i couldnt find stats for 2011 but still a massive difference.

The big question here is i suppose is this what is preventing us from find joy/peace, inner calm whatever you want to call it?
How can it?

Think about it though were you a shy kid in school, now i am thinking about back before sns or the mass popularity of it, how did you overcome this, communication, personal communication not sitting typing or texting but rather to ingage with people, activate that part of the brain that gives us that self satisfaction, that friendship that can only come from speaking to someone face to face.

I dont think it is our nature anymore to wanrt to speak face to face anymore, I do think this is partly down to sns, to want to form real relationships, to want to communicate on a personal level. Can you imagine Jesus trying to feed the 5,000 "just a minute i need to check in", or " better setup a event for this so peeps know where i am", i dont think so.

But why are other culutures different why does it not effect everyone the same way, why would individuals risk their lives for others, people they dont even know, the example i am thinking of is during the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant disaster, these workmen went in and attempted to clean up the radiation so as to prevent complete meltdown, the names of these workmen, unknown - they did not feel a need to publicise who they were or plaster it all over FB, Twitter, google+ you get the idea.

They dont need 1000 followers liking them to feel joy or peace in what they did, they just did it for the love of mankind.
The japanesse seemd to have this knack for always have a bright positive attitude, a can do manner and willingness to help attitude, if a teacher does not turn up for class then the kids will take the class, if you get caught in the rain with no coat a shop owner will lend you his umbrella and trust you will bring it back.

Is it not time we started to devleop this same attitude?

How?