The same argument can be made for sleep. And there might be a useful analogy there...
Psychologically "sleeping" (i.e. directing your energies in not-obviously-productive pursuits) bends your brain in a way that a relentless focus on "useful" work does not. This is probably true of all entertainment.
Objectively, the person who spends 500 hours getting a 6502 emulator working in JavaScript and then blogging about it, has added more to the world than the person who spends those same hours streaming The Simpsons.
...and also more than those of us who spend 500 hours reading the blogs of people who made crazy useless things happen...
But maybe the personal value of the diversionary time spent has some sort of parity..?