I keep up with news, but Im on and off for posting on forums.

I keep up somewhat and check once every six months, and then get really into it when it's time to upgrade.

Ethrem
I’m 36 and still very much love reading about all this stuff and participating is various forums but I don’t have the family+busy career thing so that’s probably what it is.

Partly similar, I still follow it because of my career though but not usually on forums like this but rather through reddit.

Jbarillaro
Yea I feel the same way I hate spending the money so I would much rather just watch videos about stuff and get the same gratification lol

I feel like videos are often very "surface level" though, Overclock.net, sweclockers, bleeping computers and so on are way better at providing real conversation and more deep dives. There are probably videos like that too but fewer and harder to find and not easy to actually have a conversation with the content creators as it is on a forum or in a chat imo.

My dad has been active on forums since before I was born, mostly stars of the Wars, Trek, and Gate varieties. The only forums I really go on are automotive trying to find part numbers, or sometimes Tom's Hardware to troubleshoot network errors because the Windows forums are useless.

It is pretty easy to catch up on tech news these days. Everyone is making videos and there are tons of sites dedicated to the latest news.

I've actually started to try to learn more about some areas that I never went deep despite of considering myself a very informed guy in everything tech related. but sometimes I feel like "screw it"

I'm less interested when I can hit the FPS I want, and not in need of an upgrade.  Otherwise, I'd rather use my stuff instead of reading about stuff I'm not going to buy.

I'm with you on this one mate.

There is an expression:  You know you are getting older when parts of your body, that you never did anything to, start to hurt.

candle_86
So when i was younger, early to mid 20's say 05-13/14 i was super active on forums, i followed the latest news, could quote fixes, hardware specs ect, but as I've gotten older I've become less active, I don't try to learn all the new stuff, there was a time I knew the specs of every new card, but i can't even tell you the basics of the newest RTX cards, i just don't pay attention anymore. Is this just a general burn out slowly over the last few years, is it the nature of getting older, or is the nature of family+busy career giving me no time. I've honestly been disinterested in even going back and learning, and I'm only 33, it seems to young to reach this point. Anyone else ever come across this, or is this unique to me

You're definitely not the only one. I have lost so much interest over the years. I don't even really play games anymore. I did just upgrade my PC with a new mobo, cpu, memory, and SSD, but that was more out of annoyance with compatibility issues between my hardware and the different software I run. And even then, I went to Microcenter and said "I want to spend this much, and need these components, what would you recommend?" I had a general idea, but didn't know exactly what I wanted when going in.

I had that same problem when I was complacent at my previous job. My job was so easy it felt like all I had to do was show up most days. My daily challenges were literally up to how hard I wanted them to be, eventually I started feeling like I was regressing in overall knowledge thinking back to my previous self and how much more I knew off the top of my head just a few years before. -- It was because I wasn't being challenged at all. It's so easy to fall into that because it's comfortable and enjoyable most days... but you never challenge your self and get out of your comfort zone, it feels like you just kinda wither away.

Over the last ten years or so, I try to keep up in general and then when I am doing new builds for my wife and I, refocus on exactly what I'm looking for in a system and what we want out of it.  Since we are retired, we have varied interests in common one being competition and hunting with flintlocks and that tech hasn't changed in 250 years.  Photography is a large part of my computer usage and I keep abreast of that evolution and upgrading my photo equipment.  The latest (I've used Canon for the last 40+ years) is going to be expensive with new bodies and lenses.
 
Over the years, some interests come and go, others are more of a passion.

augiem

RainStryke
I had that same problem when I was complacent at my previous job. My job was so easy it felt like all I had to do was show up most days. My daily challenges were literally up to how hard I wanted them to be, eventually I started feeling like I was regressing in overall knowledge thinking back to my previous self and how much more I knew off the top of my head just a few years before. -- It was because I wasn't being challenged at all. It's so easy to fall into that because it's comfortable and enjoyable most days... but you never challenge your self and get out of your comfort zone, it feels like you just kinda wither away.

Man I wish I could get paid for just showing up. I've worked as a freelancer and running my own small business my whole career (17 years) and, believe me, you never have a relaxing day where you can turn off your brain. Stress builds up over time and changes you in bad ways. Opposite problems. I would love to be able to veg out for a change.

If you don't mind less than 30K a year, find a contract security firm that does unarmed contracts. Most of the time you are in a room looking at cameras pan back and forth while you try and find something good to watch on Netflix. lol

I only really pay attention when there's something exciting happening in the gaming community. I love seeing new tech get released even if I don't want to buy it.

But I WILL be trying for a 3080ti!