College Addictions...you know you have them

NAPSTER: Sure, it seems innocent enough. Let me just download this one song that I HAVE to have. But soon that one song isn't enough, you've had a taste, and now you're hooked. You become jealous of your roommate's extensive collection, or a car drives by your dorm room blasting your soon to be favorite song. You spend hours downloading. Just when you think there isn't another song you could possibly want, at 3 am the assholes downstairs start blast Nelly's Ride Wit Me (with the base turned up so high initially you thought your rustic AKA old and decrepit dorm was collapsing). So you spring out of bed chastising yourself for being so neglectful for having forgotten that classic (meanwhile the fact that you also forgot to study for your psyche test doesn't faze you). Then you stare at the window, with the anticipation of a goat in need of a good milking, watching the song download with the speed of a one-legged hurdler. Then an hour and twenty minutes later, when you have 99% of the song there is a Transfer Error and you lose the whole damn thing. Then whenever you hear Ride Wit Me, instead of enjoying the song like you used to, you are filled with scorn because you don't have it safely tucked away on your hard drive. Then you go to write a paper (because that's what you swore to your parent's the brand new computer was for) and you can't save the document because there is no more room. So you tearfully delete the theme song to Gilligan's Island (which has brought you hours of enjoyment) to make room for your History paper. You contemplated deleting your Billy Joel collection that you cut class for three days and it took you 72 hours to download. The aggravation of it all was probably not worth the $20 it would have cost to buy his greatest hits CD. Meanwhile the hundreds of dollars you spent on CDs in the past is wasted because you haven't listened to a CD since you moved in. So you swear that you've had enough of Napster and you hate it and you hope it gets crushed in court and you'll never use it again. But the NAPSTER icon is still there, lurking on your screen, waiting for you to have a relapse. 

INSTANT MESSENGER: On the surface, a great way to keep in touch with your high school pals. But beyond the facade (i know, big college vocab word) it's a sinister force keeping you from studying or sleeping. You could be studying or reading and you hear the sound of the door opening and it sends you hurdling for your computer to see who just signed on. It is nice to chat and keep in touch, but soon instant messenger begins to dominate your life. You hear the message bleeps in your dreams. You start to refer to your friends by their screennames. It also encourages extreme laziness. You find yourself iming your roommate who is sitting next to you at her computer to ask what time you want to go to dinner. But then there are the lonely times when no one is signed on or everyone has an away message. One would think you'd be able to study then but NOOOO! You sit and read everyone's away messages. You might stop to read for five minutes, then you get up again to see if anyone's away message changed while you were gone. In a way, the Away Message is an addiction in itself. You spend hours sitting at your computer, thinking of a clever away message. You thrive on the compliments and messages that friends leave you. But then there are those days when you couldn't think of anything funny to say, or maybe you just didn't have time. You get back to the dorm and no one left you a message, even though you were gone for several hours. You feel empty, like you disappointed everyone. You start judging your self worth by the quality of your away message and the responses it receives. You get nervous sitting in class, you can't concentrate, wondering who's on line, if they're reading your away message, what do they think, what conversations are you missing? Then you race back to the dorm, grunt hello at your roommate (who is on instant messenger), plop at your desk and as you place your hands on the keys and hear the familiar, comforting bleeps of a buddy saying hello, you finally feel at peace. 

SNOOD: DO NOT DOWNLOAD SNOOD!! I don't care who tells you it is a great game, how much fun it looks, or the happiness you think it will bring you. It is the DEVIL. It's only purpose is to serve as a distraction from completing homework. I do not care how much will power you think you have, this game will destroy you. 

VENDING MACHINES: They are everywhere on campus! In the dorm, in the halls, everywhere. You walk past and you can hear the humming of the Coke machine and it calls to you. And with the will power of a cocaine addict, you go over and look longingly at the selection. You can almost taste the refreshing soda that you suddenly need to have. And with just a mere swipe of your card, its yours. Or at times, you're up in your room and you're attacked by a craving for fat free fruit snacks. You go to the vending machine with the intention of getting fat free fruit snacks, and that is it. Yet, somehow, you always seem to come back upstairs struggling to juggle the fat free fruit snacks, the Doritos, Snickers, Lifesavers, Starbursts, and Twizzlers that you bought. (OOOPS, must have pressed the wrong button or something.) Then there is the fact that no one wants to to the vending machine alone. You beg your roommate to PLEASE go with you, like an alcoholic that needs a drink but is embarrassed to go to the bars alone, several times a day. You feel comforted that others share your weakness. 

You may laugh, but these addictions are real. College students are caught completely off guard. No one warns you about them, and there is little help out there in combating them. Anyone can get sucked in, and it is hard to break free. For those of you who suffer from any of these addictions, just know that you are not alone.