How often do your interests change?

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Just curious...

How often do you find that your "special interests" change from day-to-day or week-to-week? Do your interests stay the same long term?

I've found that I can be obsessed with a topic for a few weeks, then go cold on it very suddenly and find a new topic of interest.

Anyone else experience this?

Not very often. I've been a Kinks Fanatic and I mean fanatic since I was 9. Nobody knew until I was 19.

My interests are relatively static, but I guess there are sub-categories of these interests that tend to change or evolve over time.

My main interests tend to stay for years or even decades.

Sometimes they carry on being interests in smaller ways so not as intense as when they were "special interests", sometimes having a revival - I'll go through intense times with some interests, get distracted for a while with a new interest, but often go back to the original interest but maybe with a more specific interest. Some I forget, literally all I learn about a subject get totally forgotten.

My big "special interests" have been; farming, science (biology as a child, physics in my teens/twenties), geology, psychology, religious studies, gynaecology. Gynaecology is currently on 9 years with some vague interest in it as a child too and a more specialised interest in menstrual health over the past 5 years, geology was a major interest as a child and lasted around 9 years too peaking when my bed started filling up with stone samples then once it ended everything was forgotten, biology was another big one as a kid that lasted about 5 years, religion lasted about 8 years with a bit of a revival when I did philosophy in college.

I can get lesser interests that maybe last a month or so, but normally mine are long-term.

My interests are long-term. Even if I no longer actively seek out an interest I still find information about it interesting and worth knowing, but most interests are still active. My longest-running uninterrupted interest has been going for 31 years now.

Very interesting responses. I guess maybe I'm a little unusual. I've studied a lot of different topics in varying degrees of intensity, but they don't seem to hold my interest in the long term. I don't often forget what I learn or become completely disinterested in it, but what I'm obsessed with varies over time.

My major interests change about every 1 to 3 years, but they tend to be subjects within the same category, and the category itself can be an interest for a lot longer. For example, when I was a child and teenager, anime in general was a major interest for around 10 years. However, my obsessions with specific anime series changed every couple of years.

Also worth noting is that when I am burned out on a major interest, I am done with it for good. My decision to seek out something new means that my current interest has become completely boring to me. I don't get bored with them on purpose though, and I tend to go through a minor episode of grieving if I am transitioning away from an interest which had a significant emotional impact on me.

My minor/secondary interests tend to last anywhere from one day to about 6 months. Unlike my major interests, I am less likely to get burned out on them because I don't get too heavily immersed in them. Therefore I am capable of returning to them later on if I desire to do so.

My most intense interests switch every few weeks, or every few months. I do, however, have a static set of very long-term intrests which have never really changed.

My interests tend to come and go rather frequently, some of the more intense ones last for 1-2 years.

Syrella, I love your picture-it's so cute!

I didn't think that I had special interests, but from reading this thread, I see that I do.

My special interests generally last about a month, but it depends on the available material to support that interest, the time that I have to indulge it, and various interruptions.

I have a few topics that I explore regularly, but I normally focus on a different subtopic each time. Sometimes I will explore a completely new topic.

Sometimes my special interest is my work. This is a good thing, because it makes me very productive and a bad thing because it makes me a workaholic.

I still have the same basic set of special interests I did as a child (50+ years ago) and picked up a few more since then.
Depending on what's going on I may spend anything from a few days to several months on any one of them exclusively, before picking up one of the others. Some mix, like electronics and computing do.
Some other special interests have come and gone over the years although once I've been involved with something, it never really leaves me and I "keep in touch" with it occasionally - Astronomy, Cacti, Orchids and a few others.