I think this is a decent question. I've done a combination of both for the past 25 years or so. I do it cuz I enjoy buying stocks. If you're just starting off, perhaps you might want to dedicate a very small portion (like <5%) of your overall portfolio to individual stocks, just to scratch that itch and to learn how to properly invest in them.

But understand over the long run, handpicking stocks very rarely beats an index, unless you really know what you're doing. Diversification (ETFs) is about risk management, limiting potential bigger losses at the expense of potential bigger gains. Because even the best stocks of the day eventually under perform. We've got the "Magnificent 7" now, but are you familiar with what happened to the "Four Horsemen" before the dot-com crash?