I have always loved computer tech since I first became involved with it in 1994. Since that time, I replaced at least some of the components on a yearly basis (with some years pretty much replacing everything). I always wanted the latest/greatest parts, so this is what I did for roughly 25 years. CPUs, GPUs, RAM, motherboards, sound cards, storage.......there was always something that needed to be replaced in order to keep up with what was newly launched.
In the last year or two, I just have had zero desire to upgrade anything computer related. Even when the Ryzen 3000 and 5000 series CPUs launched and received great reviews, I didn't get tempted to buy any of them. In fact, the only thing I replaced was a SSD in my son's computer that suddenly died. I know the last 5 years or so my PC gaming time has had a huge decrease, with the last two years being pretty much nil outside of playing a little Civ5 from time to time. I still like reading about new technology, but I am beginning to wonder if I won't keep the same PC at least 5+ more years (assuming it still works fine)?
Even going into help threads in the tech sub-forums has become pretty boring as well. Just too many of the same questions asked over and over, with the answers so easy to find (if people put any effort into looking for the answer).
"What's the best CPU for me", "What kind and how much RAM", "What's a good SSD", "What GPU will play the games I play", "What PC case is a good choice"?..........
B-O-R-I-N-G
Now get off my lawn!
Once we hit Quad-core CPU's & SSD's, imo computers got "good enough". My primary rig is a circa-2013 i7 jumbo tower. I upgraded to a 1080Ti a few years ago, mostly for VR, but haven't felt the need to go past that. I remember a buddy got the 40gb Intel SSD when it first came out, the X25 or whatever, and it was just such a gamechanger. Combined with a 4-core CPU & at least 8 gigs of RAM, and anything with that setup is going to pretty dang quick!
I still keep up on the latest stuff reading-wise, and thanks to working in IT for the past decade or two, I've gotten into everything from VPN's to networking to virtualization to whatever. Everything else is just depth at this point, so it' more of a matter of specialization. One of the key things I've learned from continuous education is that you have to keep things novel & have a daily iteration available to chew on in order to keep looking forward to things. I group those into 4 categories:
1. Repeating an experience
2. Learning something new
3. Doing something new
4. Honing an existing skill
Like for cooking, I have a special set of "treasured recipes" that I really love. They've been perfected over the years & I like having that experience, so when I'm in the mood, I make it! But mostly, I've founding that learning, doing, and honing - in small bites, over time - are what keep my interest in a topic afloat & slowly but surely grows my skillset. I have a HIGH amount of internal resistance to slowly chipping away on stuff, but it's been the most effective & reliable way for me to get good at stuff & keep the motivation alive.
Plus, once you have a solid foundation of knowledge & experience in something like computers, it's easy to keep up with the industry with five or ten minutes of reading during breakfast on sites like Anandtech, Bittech, and Engadget. Like OK, AMD released a 64-core CPU, or they have RGB RAM now, or you can buy turnkey watercooler systems for your GPU & whatnot these days, or Ubiquiti released the Dream Machine, plus a Pro version, or Mesh networking at home is a thing now, or Starlink now has relatively cheap satellite Internet coming out. It's all the same basic stuff, just in different flavors of iteration.
This works for learning computers, math, guitar, drawing, 3D printing, pretty much whatever you can think of. If you don't line up "what's next?" every day, then it gets pretty boring pretty fast, but also, once you've built your foundation of knowledge & experience in a topic, then "what's next?" can be slim & efficient & you can engage in continuous education over time pretty effortlessly. This approach is what I credit my ability to stay both interested in IT & also being able to keep a job in IT (working more in BEC these days tho)...I've seen a lot of guys not keep up with the times & lose out because they're not up-to-date with the state of the art, which is super unfortunate because there's so many talented people who get left in the dust by New Stuff that comes out all the time.
So it kind of depends on your goals...once you've built a monster rig & gone manic on Newegg researching everything, it does kind of get old & your brain is ready for the next challenge. Lately I've been working on fleshing out my mini Maker's Lab at home...this year I plan on adding resin printing, sublimation, and a larger vinyl cutter, and I've been doing a lot of work on my iPad & digital pencil with CAD & vector art. I used to be extremely "fireworks motivation" driven, i.e. one big project with a lot of effort - BOOM then over & then look for the next exciting thing, but the whole "small bites daily" approach has really been working out well for me, especially as it's super low-stress because I break up the decision-making & preparation from the execution of the work, so I never have to get in a crunch & go into avoidance-behavior mode because I'm trying to do everything all at once.
Getting older is weird.