Harry Potter is addictive: Medical study

Yes, reading Harry Potter is as much addictive as drug and other addiction, asserts a recent study to be published in Journal of General Psychology.

The series of book related to Harry Potter created rave in the world of literature and this study has shown that Harry Potter fans find hard to leave this habit of reading the books.

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Researchers after studying a group of 4,000 Potter fans found that 10 percent of them suffer from symptoms like depression, loss of appetite and sleeplessness while 20 percent of them are at threshold of addiction.

Professor Jeffrey Rudski who led researchers of Muhlenberg College, Pennsylvania, said, “An addiction to a drug is no different from an addiction to Harry Potter or the Internet or pornography. It's not always a bad thing. There's a community that you get with Harry Potter that you don't get with heroin.”

“Some readers can become so engaged in the series and the ancillary world that grew out of it that they report behaviours -- that truly fit definitions of addiction or dependence,” he added.

During study it was also found that 10 percent of Potter’s fans spent over four hours a day on Potter related activities and experienced hindrance in their appetite and sleep with less and less physical activities and sense of irritability in their behaviour.

A series of seven fantasy novels written by J.K Rowling is the adventurous narrative of adolescent wizard Harry Potter along with his best friends Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.

The story spins around at an academy for young wizards and witches, Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The story is about Harry's struggle against the evil wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry's parents in his pursuit to conquer the wizard world and the chronicle of various events in the mysterious world.