Rodney M., 20, is a single father who works part time and attends real estate school. Rodney and I spoke recently at his home in Bloomington, Indiana.

"I once fell asleep playing it. I woke up to see my son standing over me looking at me like I was crazy. "Dad," he said. "Why were you sleeping with the control in your hand?" I looked down and realized that I was still holding the control, that's when I knew that I just couldn't stop playing."

"The X-box just has a way of drawing my attention to it. I love that game and I play it all the time. I like the X-box so much because it is really fun to play. I can play a basket ball game in which I am actually on a famous team like the Orlando Magic, that's my favorite team. I can also make up my own team and have my friends on my team. I think that's why I like to play so much, because I can feel like I'm really in the game. When I'm playing basketball game, I usually pick my own team and we win the championship. My has won in the playoffs three times now. If I'm not playing basketball, then I'm playing football, which is made by John Madden. They have a new game for every year."

"I try to get a new game every two weeks so that I'll always have something to play. I usually stay up pretty late playing. I remember a time when I stayed up until 5:00 a.m. playing." Sometimes I'm really tired at work the next day. But it's like I can't help it, I'll tell myself I'm going to go to sleep early but then I just keep playing. Sometimes it gets hard to find time to play, but I make sure to play at least once a day. I even got my son to start playing the game so now I can keep him occupied and do my favorite thing at the same time."

"I usually wake up and play the game before I do anything else. I play until I get hungry or I have to go somewhere. Then when I get back from what I had to do for the day I go home and play the game some more. It's funny because my girlfriend will get mad at me if I leave her house to go play the game. Sometimes she argues with me about playing, but I just don't think she understands how much fun it is. Especially with today's games, they are so realistic with all the new technology that it can actually feel like you are in the game."

"My favorite games are basketball and football games. The games are so cool to play because there are different things I can do with them. I can pick my own players and even chose what I want them to look like, right down to the tattoos. I can also play in tournaments against other teams. Me and my roommate often play against each other and it becomes pretty competitive. I also like to play because, in a way, it feels like I am actually a famous athlete. In some of the games I have I can program my name in so the computer says it when I get a touchdown or something."

"It's the next best thing to actually playing a sport. But that's another good thing about playing the X-box, it helps to pass the time away. So if I'm bored and don't have anything else to do, I'll just play the game."

"The X-box also gives me something to look forward to because I know I can just go home and play it when I am done with my hard days at work. I like the fact that there are always new games coming out. Like with the football games I like, they have one that comes out every year at the start of the real NFL football season. There is also one for basketball. I have to make sure that I get all the new games when they first come out, so I usually pre-order them to ensure that I will get the games I want. Me and my roommate usually share our games, so we both buy different ones."

"I know that sometimes I put off things that I probably should be doing in order to play the game but I can't help it. Sometimes the game distracts me from other things. I also remember a time when I was supposed to be picking my friend up from work. I decided not to start playing the game until after I picked him up. So I tried to avoid it but I couldn't help it, I just had to play. The next thing I know the phone rings and it was my friend. "Where are you? He yelled, "You were supposed to be here an hour ago." I had gotten so into the game that two hours had passed and I forgot to pick him up. To this day he's still kind of mad. I kind of learned my lesson from that I try to make sure I have everything I need to do finished before I start playing. I just have so much fun playing that its hard to do this at times."

"Maybe I shouldn't spend so much time playing, but I feel like as long as I get everything else that I need to do accomplished, although it may take awhile, I can reward myself by doing something I really like to do. I may make my girlfriend and others mad at me by playing all the time, but they'll get over it."

Angela Graves

Obsessions