From a recent Nokia press release: Up to a quarter of the entertainment consumed by people in five years time will have been created, edited and shared within their peer circle, rather than coming out of traditional media groups. "The trends we are seeing show us that people will have a genuine desire not only to create and share their own content, but also to remix it, mash it up and pass it on within their peer groups -- a form of collaborative social media," said Mark Selby, Vice President, Multimedia, Nokia.

Selby added, "We think it will work something like this; someone shares video footage they shot on their mobile device from a night out with a friend, that friend takes that footage and adds an MP3 file -- the soundtrack of the evening -- then passes it to another friend. That friend edits the footage by adding some photographs and passes it on to another friend and so on. The content keeps circulating between friends, who may or may not be geographically close, and becomes part of the group's entertainment."

I personally don't doubt the validity of the statement--it was based on interviews with "trend-setting consumers from 17 countries about their digital behaviors and lifestyles" after all--but I do rue the conclusion. That's because the last thing I want is entertainment that I have to create.

Most adults spend all day creating or assembling stuff, and when we're done we don't want to do more. What we do want is to relax and be entertained: watch a ball game or a movie, read a book or, at most, press buttons on a video game controller. We don't want to sit at another computer and edit video footage.

At least I don't.

This brings to mind a conversation I had a few years ago with a Bell Sympatico employee. The topic was IP TV, and specifically why Bell's plans to launch an Internet-connected, interactive television service had been stalled. He told me that one fundamental problem was that TV is a passive, sit-back activity, while IP TV promoted a more active, sit-forward interaction. And the company and the IP TV movement in general were struggling with that basic disparity.

Perhaps Nokia's research points to a growing interest in creating and shaping our entertainment products, and Bell and others can finally get interactive TV into consumer homes.

But I think I'll sit out this movement. As much as I love the Internet and technology in general, sometimes I just want to relax. And I don't care if video footage of me also has photos of me added to it or not.

Peter Wolchak