You must have heard that too much of everything is bad. Same is true with entertainment, which, in conjunction with technology, has invaded every aspect of human life. With the constantly blurring lines between entertainment, information, and education, no one is sure what exactly is he/she using all the sources of entertainment for.

The first thought while turning to any entertainment source, that anybody has, is not of happiness, as your question suggests. It is rather that of saving oneself from the boredom, or for the purpose of recreation and rejuvenation. So it is incorrect to say that someone is inclined towards the sources of entertainment primarily for happiness.

Having made this clear, let me recount what all sources of entertainment we have today. We have a mobile phone, which already sums up a lot of entertainment sources. If you have a mobile phone, you have a messenger to chat with your friends, you have a means to listen to music, to watch videos, movies, and even live streaming of certain things. Apart from mobile phones, there are laptops, iPads, music systems, television, and so on.

Did I miss anything? Yes, I missed a lot which probably you will be unable to guess because, for us, the primary sources of entertainment are all technological. The more they are closed to the latest technology, the more they are popular (for example, mobile phones and iPads are more popular than television).

From the above fact, it can be concluded that sources of entertainment like books, paintings, theatre, street plays, qawwali performance, etc., have lost their importance considerably. There is Kindle, there are Youtube videos of Qawwali, street plays, and so on, but obviously, they serve the purpose of killing our boredom, not of making us happy.

There were times when such entertainment sources used to make us happy because they were to be consumed, when the mind is free and at rest. When we used to be in this state, the sources of entertainment like a song of Kishore Kumar or a theatrical performance would be enjoyed to its fullest and appreciated too. It used to be not just a thing to consume and move on with our lives, but an experience to have and keep entrapped in heart forever. Isn’t that’s how we feel while reading a good book? This feeling can never be achieved when we are crossing a road or having lunch with the family with our headphones on and a loud music playing.

I hope this answers your question.