Entertainment includes certain activities that are aimed at providing people with amusement in their free time. Pastime can also mean the same but the amusement factor is not very promising, unlike in entertainment, whose main motive is amusement. Entertainment helps in creating a diversion in people's lives from the more mundane things. It can include actions that please and appeal to different senses of an individual. There are two broad categories of entertainment that you could relate to - active entertainment and passive entertainment.

Active entertainment actions include recreational activities and sports. Here, the individual takes part in the activity to obtain entertainment. Hunting and fishing, trekking, and skiing are all adventure activities that you indulge yourself in to attain some amusement.

Passive entertainment refers to those activities that individuals do not take part in directly. For instance, watching movies, TV shows, etc belong to this category. Other activities like practicing musical instruments, personal reading, etc are categorized as hobbies.

To help you understand the difference between active and passive entertainment better, here's an example. If you play a game of soccer, that's active entertainment; if you watch it on TV, it becomes passive. Similarly, being a lead guitarist of a metal band at a concert is considered active entertainment while being a part of the audience is getting entertained in the passive style.

Certain entertainment activities are aimed at providing enjoyment, laughter and fun to the audience. These actions are carried out by individuals belonging to the industry of entertainment, commonly called entertainment industry. The entertainment industry is a wide term that comprises fields like cinema, theatre, dance, music, sports and games.

Children entertainment includes cartoons, clowns, pantomimes and puppets. This can be seen as more of a stereotype considering the present day scenario because these days, you can be at the age of fifty and still enjoy 'Tom & Jerry' or 'Lion King'.

More advanced forms of entertainment include animation. Here, we can see use of multimedia in order to create moving images. Traditional entertainment sources include theater and cinema. While these are appealing to some people, other activities like comics, games, magic shows, storytelling, etc are appealing to others. Dance and music have been a part of human entertainment from pre- historic period it is said. Comedy is a part of entertainment that includes jokes, observational humor, and slapstick comedy. Circus, concerts, lectures, radio and mass media are among other entertainment forms.