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It was 1904, and G. Stanley Hall, writing his magnum opus on adolescent development, was concerned about rising crime rates among American youth. He discerned a variety of causes, but one key source of the problem was the media. As Hall saw it, a young man may be induced to commit crimes in part because “his mind becomes inflamed with flash literature and ‘penny dreadfuls’” that portray crime as glamorous and heroic (p. 361). This was not the only problem of youth that Hall attributed to media influences. Johann von Goethe's 1774 novel, The Sorrows of Young Werther , remained popular in Hall's time–with pernicious effects, according to Hall. “The reading of romance has great influence on the development of youthful passion. Werther has created a distinct psychosis known as Wertherism” (p. 387). Hall and his contemporaries could hardly have imagined the media environment that today's children and adolescents experience. ...