what were you interested in as a child/teenager?

[WalterMitty]

..and are you still interested in those things.

i am mainly thinking of academic/intellectual interests here...not particular toys, video games or tv shows.

[Bleach Blonde Bad Built Butch Bodies for Biden]

I was really into cartooning and animation long ago.

[This user has not been convicted of 34 felonies]

video games and beating the meat

yes i am still interested

[TDAS04]

I have been interested in politics, history, and geography for quite a while.  I memorized the US Presidents at age 6, and soon found myself glued to the TV during the broadcast of Richard Nixon's funeral.

I have also been interested in animals and astronomy for a long time.  My favorite animals included alligators/crocodiles and big cats; they are still among my favorites.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

I was really into cartooning and animation long ago.

I was too, and I still am.  In fact, my interests are more or less the same as they were then.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

I have been interested in politics, history, and geography for quite a while.  I memorized the US Presidents at age 6, and soon found myself glued to the TV during the broadcast of Richard Nixon's funeral.

Same; I remember watching Reagan's funeral, the USS Cole bombing, 9/11, Shock and Awe, and the 2004 Presidential election as a 4 through 8 year old.

[Paul Kemp]

I have been interested in politics, history, and geography for quite a while.  I memorized the US Presidents at age 6, and soon found myself glued to the TV during the broadcast of Richard Nixon's funeral.

Same; I remember watching Reagan's funeral, the USS Cole bombing, 9/11, Shock and Awe, and the 2004 Presidential election as a 4-8 year old.

I'm depressed.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

Politics and history.  I haven't changed much

[Kitteh]

In rough chronological order:

Trains, Marine Biology, Dinosaurs, Fashion, Physics, Greek Mythology, History, Military Theory, General Politics, Psychology, Electoral Politics and Political Campaigns, Urban Planning, Feminism/Queer Theory, Socialism, Existentialism, General Philosophy, Neuroscience, Psychopharmacology, Sociology...that's roughly where I am now.

Although in the past few years I've been feeling very depressed and apathetic about life in general and so the amount of energy I put into "interests" (intellectual or otherwise) or the level of interest I have in anything really has declined to almost zero now.

I turn 18 in three days, fwiw.

[Ban my account ffs!]

I spent more time as a kid playing in the sand than any other activity.  We lived on a family resort and we had a swimming beach... and mostly in spring and fall when there weren't as many guests I'd design ornate freeway systems in the sand and rebuild them over and over again as they got ruined.

My obsessions/interests were in roughly this order from the time I remember having any interests other than "where's mommy and where's my blankie?"

1.  Vacuum cleaners.  I was obsessed.  Canister vacuums were my favorite.  My grandma's Kirby was terrifying because she kept it in her basement underneath this, what I can only describe as a maid cover.  It was a covering you stuck over the handle of the vacuum that she sewed so it looked like it was a made with a little duster wearing a bonnet and everything... except... EXCEPT... IT HAD NO FACE.  It didn't have a f**king face.  It terrified me and my sister!  We were just sure some demonic face of death would appear on the blank white fabric where a couple buttons and a stitched on smile could've done wonders.  So, like many things in my life... my relationship with my first interest was intense, emotionally draining, and incredibly confusing.

2.  Building cities/road networks in the sand.  My biggest obsession from roughly age 4-13.  I'd get so angry at the guests when they'd step all over my road system.  So there was a resentment there... but also developed into a new obsession of not just designing road networks or drawing our floor plans for various grocery stores and stuff in town... I was obsessed with how to change these things to make them better... rebuilding roads and emulating real world projects I had driven by whereever in the sand... drawing out floor plans in pencil and then erasing and redrawing remodels on it.

3.  This morphed into an obsession with statistics and filling notebook paper full of numbers that represented various scenarios of population projections, etc using age data and trying to interpret trends and blah blah blah.  I'd try to simulate on paper how school districts exploded in size and then rapidly imploded with a flurry of new schools one decade with just as many closures the next in the inner suburbs nearest core cities after WWII... things like that.

Yeha.  I'm super weird.

[fezzyfestoon]

Politics, architecture, travel/geography, music...a startlingly stagnant list considering my generally unstable lifestyle of the last few years.

[© tweed]

I went through infatuations with presidents and cars, then baseball.

[rejectamenta]

I wanted to be an archaeologist and live on Java when I was five or six. I didn't know anything about the field, but it was a cool, long word that I made sure to commit to memory. I arbitrarily decided Java was the most otherworldly location on the planet upon seeing it on a globe, and most certainly the place a distinguished archaeologist would reside year-round. Possibly in a hut. Its use as slang for coffee probably didn't help, either.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Politics and sports have been pretty constant since I was 12-13 years old. 

[morgieb]

Politics and sports have been pretty constant since I was 12-13 years old. 

This, except change 12-13 to 16.

[Torie]

Politics, history, and the card game of bridge.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Politics and weather... yup and yup.

[Хahar 🤔]

Baseball

[angus]

I was into maps and coins.  Also five-card poker.  Daddy taught us how to play at a young age.  First one cent, then bigger and bigger stakes.  By the time I was 13 I was doing quarter-ante, three-bump limit and doing a brisk trade in taking other students' lunch money.

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I was into maps and coins.  Also five-card poker.  Daddy taught us how to play at a young age.  First one cent, then bigger and bigger stakes.  By the time I was 13 I was doing quarter-ante, three-bump limit and doing a brisk trade in taking other students' lunch money.

I'll bet this was you, at 13

[ilikeverin]

Paleontology (2-3)
Meteorology (3-10)
Politics (10-16)
Language (16-present)

I have also, to my recollection, always been obsessed with maps, which may have spurred my meteorological phase (see also, the weather).  I also had a precocious interest in languages even though I didn't really speak any others.  Primary document evidence: in first grade I thought the most important trait my children would have was that they would speak Spanish.

[Ban my account ffs!]

Paleontology (2-3)
Meteorology (3-10)
Politics (10-16)
Language (16-present)

I have also, to my recollection, always been obsessed with maps, which may have spurred my meteorological phase (see also, the weather).  I also had a precocious interest in languages even though I didn't really speak any others.  Primary document evidence: in first grade I thought the most important trait my children would have was that they would speak Spanish.

I was obsessed with languages for a while and tried to create my own languages using templates from other obsessed people on the internet.  Did you ever do that?

[ilikeverin]

Paleontology (2-3)
Meteorology (3-10)
Politics (10-16)
Language (16-present)

I have also, to my recollection, always been obsessed with maps, which may have spurred my meteorological phase (see also, the weather).  I also had a precocious interest in languages even though I didn't really speak any others.  Primary document evidence: in first grade I thought the most important trait my children would have was that they would speak Spanish.

I was obsessed with languages for a while and tried to create my own languages using templates from other obsessed people on the internet.  Did you ever do that?

Of course!  I started when I was 15; see also the age I credit my obsession with language starting   I credit that hobby with 1/4 of the reason why I'm in the PhD program I'm in right now.

[memphis]

Snowguy's grandma had a Bushie vacuum!!!

[Napoleon]

music, movies, sports, acting, fashion, nature (love national parks and hiking, not so much camping), biology (plants and animals), history, writing. Didn't care about politics until 2004, because I really didn't like GWB (gay marriage and Iraq War). Then I got to meet Ned Lamont and he became a political hero of mine and I've been interested in politics ever since.