I'm a Web Zombie

I'd love to claim some ennobling reason for staying up until 3 a.m. or 4 a.m. most nights over the past few weeks. Like I've been mastering a Rachmaninoff concerto. Or doing endless stomach crunches to build those washboard abs. But no. I've been staring at bigbrother2000.com on my computer screen, watching the webcast of CBS's reality show Big Brother. The TV show ("10 strangers, three months, no privacy") is hit or miss. But the website is totally addictive.

Here's the difference. The TV episodes boil 24 hours of bickering housemates into 22 minutes (longer on Wednesday and Saturday nights). The website gives me the full feed, split into four different webcams, which allows me to play junior psychologist and professional voyeur 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Turns out, I'm not the only Web zombie hooked on the Big Brother webfeed. The site is consistently in top 50; Neilsen/NetRatings reported a peak of 573,536 visitors (a typical day for Amazon.com) the night the housemates nominated two of their own for banishment. America Online, which is host to the site, calls it "the largest ongoing webcast in history."

That only makes it harder to admit that most of what I'm watching is pretty dull stuff. Like Curtis, the straitlaced Asian-American attorney, scrubbing the toilet bowl. Or Jamie, the squeaky-clean beauty queen, grating cheese for nachos. Or those endless dissertations on the virtues of Dryel, the horrors of amoeba-induced diarrhea, the burning shame of bunions.

So why do I keep coming back for more? Because every once in a while I get lucky. Like the night the gang stayed up late playing truth or dare. Or the times Eddie, the Long Island tough who lost a leg to cancer, tells anyone who will listen, "Chicks dig me. I dunno why." Or when Brittany, the pink-haired virgin, innocently persuaded Karen, the unhappy housewife, and Josh, the surfer heartthrob, to cuddle with her as a threesome in the "big bed of looove."

Even if I don't catch something spicy, anticipation keeps me hooked. Every time someone starts digging around in a dresser drawer or whispering in someone else's ear, I wonder what juicy tidbit I'll discover. I want to know what makes each person tick, which one will crack first and who will say nasty things behind someone else's back.

And because I'm not alone, I have a recourse when sleep or work gets in the way. I just pop over to the bulletin boards and fan sites for a quick update. At members-only well.com , a science-fiction writer named Martha Soukup posts dozens of updates a day with court-reporter accuracy. For more heated debate, I head over to the "Big Brother-USA" message boards on realworldblows.com , the live chats on AOL or the Big Brother Table Talk discussion at salon.com .

O.K., I admit it. I'm obsessed with the lives of 10 publicity-starved strangers. But I just can't pull myself away. When Will, the charismatic troublemaker and former member of the New Black Panther Party, got the boot last Thursday, I promised myself that this would be the end. But 15 minutes later, I logged on one last time to see how the gang was faring. Next thing I knew, it was 5 a.m., and I was still glued to the screen. Clearly, I have a problem.

Sympathizers, fellow bigbrother2000.com addicts and mental-health professionals can e-mail Anita at hamilton@time.com