Book excerpt: Generations Lost considers the unusual relationship between popular culture and American youth in a collection of essays touching on differing aspects of this current social crisis. Following a rash of school shootings culminating in the massacre at Columbine High, a heated national debate arose over the potentially toxic effects of contemporary culture and its voice--mass media-- on teens. Evidence suggests youth are in crisis. With absentee parents, failing schools and a lack of role models, adolescents have adopted the values and behaviors of those media-made heroes and myths they are bombarded by. Minus the steadying presence of adults to counteract this deception, they are especially vulnerable to this insidious universe of influences. Bizarre images and bogus representations of reality have distorted their perception. Television, films, video games and cyberspace contribute to their corruption. For youth, reality as adults knew and taught it to children no longer exists. This crucial difference in perception and subsequent behavior accounts for many of the extreme anti-social disorders youth now display.