During this essay I will discuss video gaming and the effects it can have on our younger generation. Growing up as a kid in a small town there was never many things to do. Playing sports or having a summer job meant the world to a lot of kids where I’m from. A lot of my friends did not have jobs or did anything during the summer but stay inside their houses and watch TV. One summer I was introduced to my first love, the Sega Genesis. For that whole summer I stayed inside my house and played hours after hours of NBA Jams and Mortal Kombat. Video gaming was fun, it gave me away to live in a fantasy world and not have any responsibilities. My mother had to literally cut my cables for me to stop playing it. She always would tell me to turn my game off and go study, and that I was spending too much time playing games instead of doing something constructive. At that time I just thought video gaming was fun and harmless. It took me a while to realize the effects of playing video games all the time had on me. During the next school year I struggled with simple math and English classes. I failed my first two courses and had to repeat those classes. The main reason for that was because I failed to read my summer assignments for school so I was behind. The only thing I cared about was playing video games. My school work was not the only thing effected by my new habit. I did not make the varsity basketball team or football team. Instead of going to summer camp to get better I chose to spend my money for camp on video games. I lost my allowance for nearly one year because I played so much my mother’s electric bill was