BEANTWORTEN SIE FRAGEN - English

I was making an advanced multiple choice exercise.Suddenly  I found this sentence with 4 different options:

Nowadays people are........in reality  television.

there were these options:  a)engrossed

                                           b) captivated

                                           c) gripped

                                          d) I don't remember honestly.

I knew that the adjective " gripping" means to be attracted to something like a movie or a tv show, but the crrect answer was " engrossed" which also means " focused on "  tv reality in these case.

So " gripped" can't be used in this sentence as a verb, am I correct? 

Does it have another meaning as a verb, different from " gripping"?