This chapter explores the pervasive media environments that increasingly provide a context for development. It focuses on media access, exposure, and effects on developmental outcomes. The kinds of media available to children and youth are changing rapidly during the digital age. The point of entry for understanding the influence of this media environment on developmental outcomes is an assessment of the media available in children's homes. Children who grow up in the United States live in an environment saturated with electronic media. Uses and gratification theory, grounded in the field of communications, provides an important framework for understanding media use patterns by children as well as by adolescents and adults. When the kind of media exposure is examined, a positive picture of media exposure emerges for certain content. The challenge of the 21st century is for societies to accentuate the positive opportunities afforded by media while minimizing the negative ones.