Friend: Bro, you’ll never guess what happened to me this afternoon …

Me: Tell me!

Friend: Well, there I was, chillin’ by the supermarket, when all of a sudden the police started shooting at me.

Me: What?! Are you kidding? Explain …

Friend: Yeah, so I hijacked this pregnant lady’s pickup truck just as the pigs started moving in, I ran down a hooker and crashed the car right into the lake. After that, I set the elementary school on fire, shanked the mayor and left town right as the FBI helicopters were getting off the ground. Luckily, I made it back just in time for economics class.

Does this sound like an unusual dialogue for two people to have? Would you believe me if I told you I actually had this exact conversation last week? I kid you not, dear readers. Video games are ruining this generation. By the end of the chat with this buddy of mine, I realized that he was, in fact, referring to “Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas,” and not any actual apocalyptic episodes occurring on Vestal Parkway. Still, I left this conversation in a state of bewilderment and with an awful sensation in my stomach.

At the risk of upsetting a great majority of the student body (and pissing off nearly all of my friends) I ask: what is going on here?

We’ve officially reached the point where students are skipping class exams to have another go at the unending test that is “World of Warcraft.” Young virtuosos are practicing their big solo for days on end — not for the wind ensemble, but for “Guitar Hero.”

Everywhere I look, I see the shocking and unfortunate effects of video games on the lives of this generation: thumbs unconsciously “clicking” on the desktops, spontaneous body-tremors resulting from pimped out rumble packs and war stories of long ago, coming from the mouths of 18-year-old kids.

I am personally terrified to see what will come about from this collective obsession with video games. Maybe I just don’t understand it — the last game I bought was “RBI Baseball” for the original Nintendo system — but, nevertheless, I am deeply concerned that students today are quickly falling victim to the gaming consoles. Did you hear about the South Korean man who, in 2002, actually starved himself to death by playing “Counter-Strike” for 86 hours straight?

Unfortunately, I doubt that this column will ever reach the hands of those who need it most, given that they are probably all sitting at their computer chairs (with built-in drink holders, I can only hope …) engaged in bloody battle with their cyber-friends. Oh, the perils of reality. Wait, scratch that … of make believe.

Brett Schwartz is a sophomore philosophy and business double major. He bets you 2-1 that you can outscore him in “FIFA ’07.”