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"I\u2019m not sure when I first heard the term \"lifecasting.\" It may have been in the late 90s when the TV reality show Big Brother first reached our living rooms, or it could have been much later when Sarah Austin promoted her own brand of video journalism and became famous for being famous.\nBack in those days, lifecasting \u2014 the continuous live video streaming of a person\u2019s everyday life \u2014 was an exciting novelty, an opportunity to abandon our own mundane lives and experience the thrill of being someone else. \nI thought of lifecasting the other day when I saw my 13-year-old daughter trading Vines with some of her friends. When Twitter first released Vine in January of this year, I didn\u2019t think it would take too long for a generation hooked on YouTube and SnapChat to discover this almost too perfect self-broadcasting platform. \nNow teen airwaves are awash with 6-second video loops, which is just enough time to be quirky, funny, cute and everything else that a self-respecting teenage girl needs to be.\nSEE ALSO: How to Use the Vine App\n\nBut Vine is really just the tip of the iceberg.There are dozens of different ways in which our kids are encouraged to share their lives online, most of them calling for increasing amounts of video. YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter are the most popular ones we all know about \u2014 that\u2019s before we start adding new celebrity hangout sites like Hang w/ and Upfront.\nHardware and networking advances are driving the wave of new broadcasting apps. Whereas Big Brother required six cameras and a satellite truck, all our lifecasting kids need is a smartphone. Even schools are taking advantage of the new technologies, encouraging students to submit videos for science classes and other group projects.  \nHowever, despite the ubiquity of self-promotional platforms, surrounding immature and impressionable teens with 24/7 broadcast tools remains a worrying prospect. For every opportunity that our kids have to be funny and cute, there is also an opportunity for them to make a mistake. And as we all know, web-based mistakes tend to last a lot longer than web-based cuteness.\nSEE ALSO: Don't Blame Snapchat for Your Teen's Naked Pics\n\nWhen everyone is on camera, we tend to drop our guard. That\u2019s what makes reality shows so compelling. As our kids star in their own reality shows, let\u2019s make sure it\u2019s a reality that we want the whole world to see.\nThis post is part of a series on the dilemmas of raising digital kids. We'd like to hear some of the parenting issues technology has raised for you. Please let us know in the comments, or on our Mashable Lifestyle Facebook page. You can also follow and tweet us @mashlifestyle.\nImage via iStockphoto, chuwy"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2013/05/10/digital-dilemma-lifecasting-teens/>