Collecting information for special interests

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Has anyone found they spend far more time collecting information (and items) to do with their special interests than actually reading/learning about them?

For me, it seems like a huge amount of enthusiasm in the subject but a huge amount of laziness when it actually comes time for the hard work of actually learning it. I think I'm getting old and the old noggin doesn't work as well after all of the batterings I've given it over the years.

Has anyone else experienced this?

Oftentimes...yes

I got around my laziness in regards to sharks, for example, by collecting fossilised sharks teeth, lots of movies and documentaries. I also have books but have not read them all yet. I did go to Hunstanton and to the SeaLife Center there as they have black tipped reef sharks and a bonnethead. They also have a stuffed squatina squatina (angel shark) and a tope at the Castle museum in Norwich.

I am presently reading a book called 'The shark that walks on land' which is about various marine animals and myths. The shark referred to in the title is a the epaulette shark and it uses it pectoral fins to walk on the ocean floor. Other sharks in the book include the sleeper shark, frilled shark, goblin shark, 6 gill shark, great white and so on.

Other than that though, I have been rather lazy in my pursuit of knowledge in regards to them lately.

I tend to intensively research my interests rather than writing related information down, but if by collecting information you mean things like storing countless amounts of bookmarks then yes I do things like that. Not writing things down.. I attribute this to my need for something to be exact, and even with school I'd copy it straight from the text book to avoid the risk of a mistake. Furthermore, if I am to write something down my perfectionist traits come into play. >.>

When I was young I used to collect books on human anatomy while reading next to none of them, maybe that's also what you mean.

Bear in mind, I haven't been diagnosed with an ASD. I may have one or I may not.

im a mechanic. I fix cars, and motorcycles, and boats, and wheelers, and snomobiles, and tractors, and lawnmowers, and snowblowers, and stuff. all that stuff needs to be done. research, creativity, bloody knuckles, and painful arms from work. the excitement of the drive, or ride. pounding on it, is what has always really motivated me to do these things. those careless driving, and speeding tickets can sure get expensive. do not run, unless you know you can hide.

I'm not sure I understand the question - if you are collecting information, are you not learning? Or do you mean you buy books, but you don't read them?

I think I do both - I take copious notes and have a huge amount of information and I actually wouldn't be surprised if I'm the world's expert on one of my topics (although I can't claim the title for sure since I don't know how obsessive other people are about it, it's possible I'm not even close to being that).

But I do also buy books and clip articles faster than I can read them too.

I just bought a new computer and I'm in the process of actually trying to organize it all to write a book about it - organizing is so hard for me! That's my biggest problem.

Hey Bumble, every time you talk about buses or sharks I'm fascinated. Maybe you should think about writing a book too. Even if it was just a short on for kids - I bet nobody wrote a book about the bus routes and drivers of London yet. Maybe you could get an artist from WP to illustrate it for you.

A shark that walks on the ocean floor? Who ever heard of that?

I would say that collecting information IS a special interest.

It depends on the interest whether I research it extensively or spend more time collecting things about it. For instance, my interests in autism and Gene Wilder do not lend themselves to having memorabilia about them collected, so my interest in them is purely knowledge based. I keep my extensive fact collection in my head. With regard to my interests in dinosaurs and Star Trek however, they are much easier to focus around actual objects that have to do with the interest: I have special shelves where I keep the books, movies, figurines that I've collected (I'm a little sad at the moment; I've virtually run out of space, which means no more collecting until I get more shelves!) I do research my dinosaurs, but I prefer to do it by watching documentaries than by reading books, though I do have some dinosaur encyclopaedias that I look through on occasion. My point is essentially that I don't sit down at the computer and spend hours researching dinosaurs the way I do ASDs, because I have other ways of indulging that interest. Bumble, I like the idea of a shark that drives a bus My favourite shark is the Megalodon; as long as two double decker buses and with jaws that could open 7 feet wide, he shared the ocean with one of history's biggest and most dangerous whales; Brygmophyseter, the "toothed whale". He was as big as Megalodon, and the shark's only known predator during his existence 25 to 1.5 million years ago.

Yes, I'm an info collector. I have tons of travel brochures I never read, for example.

So, it looks like a huge part of our Special Interests is the excitement we get from collecting all the info we can on it. Perhaps collecting information as structrix said is a Special Interest all to itself that we all incorporate into our other Special Interests. There's an observation.

I do do a heap of reading (whenever I'm awake and life's not interfering) but I do get a huge amount of joy and excitement when I actually find a new article on my Special Interest that I haven't seen before (and isn't a copy of something else I've read). It feels like I've struck gold and I can't wait to read it but I do have soooooo many articles I've found I've wanted to read and sent them to my Kindle Fire HD and not got around to reading them yet. Oh, the joy of Asperger's

P.S.
Handy hint - If you've got a Kindle (or even the Kindle app on your computer), you can install a plugin in your Web browser called 'Push to Kindle' so when you find a Webpage you'd like to keep or read later, you simply click on the 'Push to Kindle' button whilst viewing the Webpage and it'll deliver the page to your Kindle in Kindle format (not in PDF format - in epub or acw format I think - the good one where you can change font size, it can be read out by your Kindle, etc.)

That way, no matter where you are, even if you're in transit (bus, train etc. - Not driving ), you can still indulge in your Special Interests. It's wonderful!

I've been collecting Pokemon cards since my childhood because Pokemon is just one of my special interests.

I read about cats, collect cat-related items and read books about cats.

I watch tennis, know a lot of information about my favorite players and play tennis on weekends.

I start out by collecting information about my favorite subjects, which leads to intensive research.