From Carpools to Time Travel Tweeting: Join Our Social Storytelling Experiment

Published in Technology Integration in Education

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Creating a Story Tweeting Adventure

I am a consultant in social marketing specializing in education and health. I am also parent to three great kids. I drove a lot of carpools back in the day (1993-2010 was the apex of my career as the schlepping mom in the silver Volvo station wagon—ancient history yet ever-present), and relished spying on the candid conversations playing out in the back of the car.

My passion is storytelling. So I started surreptitiously jotting down some of the backseat banter and, as my kids grew up, noted how their language, ideas and attitudes transformed along with their bodies and brains. It was a complete anthropology lesson in teen social psychology that, as a mom, I found exasperating, but as a writer and science interpreter, I found fascinating.

The result was a flight of fancy from childhood—out of time. Literally. Begun in 1997, I have recently completed writing a screenplay, “Out of Time”, whose protagonist, Charley Morton, is a 13-year old middle school girl and self-styled Renaissance Genius, à la her Florentine Idol, Leonardo da Vinci.

Social media makes the element of storytelling more intriguing, so when a friend suggested I take my screenplay public, anticipated Hollywood agents and directors lining up to option the story notwithstanding, the idea of tweeting it and incorporating followers’ voices into the storyline seemed intriguing.

The result is @OutofTimeMovie, a new social experiment to encourage friends and followers on Twitter to interact and direct Charley M. & Friends on adventures through time.

We’ve set up a profile on Twitter where Charley has already begun narrating her tale.

Charley’s adventures with friends and frenemies in multiple “time zones” over 500 years was seeded by a decade or so of those aforementioned carpool conversations. What happens next will grow out of your participation in the tweet-adventure.

Screenplay Storyline

A gaggle of over smart teens get literally carried away while doing a school science fair project: constructing a time machine. Thanks to two enterprising teens Charley Morton and Billy Vincenzo’s detective work, uncovering plans they attribute to Leonardo da Vinci, the intrepid Charley travels back in time to 15th century Florence. Armed with nothing more than an iPad, cell phone, rigged up solar battery, Legobot pieces and sour gummy worms, she jumps back show 500 years to meet Leonardo, her “Italian Idol”.

Both real and fictitious characters mingle in the present in a Washington, D.C.-area middle school, and in Renaissance Italy, where 21^st century teens learn more than they bargained for, jumping into a time of social, intellectual and religious ferment in contrast to their modern lives, and shocking early Renaissance sensibilities with their relaxed attitudes towards authority, religion, and women’s place in the world.

Charley finds herself continually censored for pursuing her passions—culinary, scientific, technological and musical (ranging from a search for the best spaghetti pomodoro (tomatoes not yet having made it to Florence from the New World-Columbus just circling),  to playing Words with Friends on her iPhone to playing violin with Lorenzo di Medici’s orchestra)—while Leonardo discovers a girl with learning far in advance of his own discoveries, but Charley is endangered by forces beyond her understanding, including the Dominican Friar Savonarola, originator of the famed bonfires of the vanities who deems Charley and her “magic-possessed” friends a threat to the minds, hearts and souls of the people of Florence.

Making it Social: Drop a Tweet

That’s the foundation; now we want you to get involved. Please follow along in the adventure or, better still, jump in and “Drop a Tweet”!

How? Simply tweet questions, replies, instructions or twists to their adventures to the characters (listed below). Or ask them to describe what they see, hear or smell along the way. Charley has already consulted a pediatrician who’s joined in the tweet chat (@jackmaypole) by asking him whether time travel might bring on motion sickness. Check out Dr. Jack’s response.

She’d love advice from technology mavens on how to stay connected to the present with her iPad or iPhone, since satellites obviously weren’t circling the planet in 1492 (in fact, Columbus was…barely).

And, teachers in every subject area from science to art to music could suggest a rubric for Charley and Billy’s science fair report, how discovery of the Higgs Boson has implications for time travel, whether Charley’s talent on theviolin would match the abilities of a professional orchestra in Lorenzo di Medici’s court, or sharing historical context for Leonardo da Vinci’s role under the di Medici’s, or whether advance knowledge of the future (gravity, flying) might change da Vinci’s legacy.

I plan to post a series of short video updates (aka: serial story tweets) to recap the story for new followers, and as catch up for those who may have missed episodes.

Five simple story rules for driving Twitter action:

1.    Tweet as yourself; the characters will respond or change action if, and at the time, your direction fits into the narrative.

2.    Please use only these fictional characters to anchor the story. Will consider introducing a new character if it makes sense as the story develops

3.    Will work on developing only one storyline at a time (past, present or future) to have time to experience the scene, create a narrative line (setup-hook-inciting incident-plot point(s)-challenge-resolution). Will jump into new adventures after these criteria have been satisfied in the time/place involved.

4.    Strive for historical accuracy (please research the time period): consider actions, interactions and dialog suited to time place, and historically accurate figures.

5.    Appropriate use of technology (time travel and other) is encouraged.

 Characters

Charley Morton, 13-year old girl, dreamer, violin player and self-styled modern day Renaissance genius who loves all things Italy and Leonardo da Vinci.

Billy Vincenzo, 13, Charley’s science fair partner, class “nerd”, crush on Charley.

Beth Jacobs, 13, social butterfly, smart but would rather be popular, Charley’s BFF (not!) and rival for Lex Campbell’s attention.

Lex Campbell, “hot” new guy at school, plays on baseball team and dreams of being recruited for major league team out of high school, major crush.

Kairos, 15-year old who appears mysteriously at Charley’s Dad’s office on Take Your Child to Work Day. He can travel across time to show up anywhere, any time. Origins unknown. In 1492, he is Leonardo’s apprentice, and sits to model for his art.

Elisabetta, 13-year old in 1492 Florence. Works in di Medici palace and takes the impetuous Charley under her wing to protect from palace intrigue.

Gwen Morton, Charley’s mom, concert violinist with National Symphony Orchestra and music teacher.

Jerry Morton, Charley’s dad, contractor for Homeland Security, and clueless about teenage girls.

Mrs. Schreiber, science teacher at Da Vinci Middle School

Leonardo da Vinci, Renaissance genius, needs no further introduction.

Lorenzo di Medici, Duke of the Republic of Florence and part of the powerful family that includes Popes, Bishops, arts patrons, military innovators and enlightened citizen-politicians

Giralamo Savonarola, Dominican friar, preacher, and self-ordained prophet. Originated the bonfire of the vanities to burn as “sin” all art, wealth, books and religious tracts. Repeatedly denounced Lorenzo’s “despotic” rule and pursues any sign of “idolatry” or “witchery”.

Settings: Home/School, the present

Takoma Park, Maryland - Suburban Washington, D.C., Da Vinci Middle School, Takoma Park Public Library

Renaissance Italy, 1492, Carnival time

A rural field outside Florence, Italy, di Medici Palace, Pitti Palace and Piazza Signoria, the central square of Florence

Twitter Screenshot

But How Do You Really Feel?

A verbal tour-de-feeling from brisket to Buddhism.

How Can Words Describe?

Beyond the DSM-5

Our stories are often defined by our emotional experience of life. It seems, however, language limits the way we express emotion. If you are a native English speaker, for example, you may say you're feeling blue, to connote a persistent sadness. But how is that distinct from being "down" or "depressed"? 

Much of what we can understand about other people's emotional states is in the ear, eye and even tongue of the beholder. 

-->How to put that into words?

Yiddish, the language of my grandparents, is a particularly “feeling” language. The language was spoken in the home by Jews of Western Europe. Ladino, the dialect for Sephardic Jews, scattered throughout the Mediterranean after expulsion from Spain due to the Inquisition, is an admix of Hebrew, Spanish, Arabic, Turkish and other languages. 

The Yiddish tongue evolved to include an amalgam of Hebrew, Aramaic, German, Polish and a bissel of the Romance languages as the ancient Hebrews, who were destined to roam the Diaspora from the time of the Babylonian exile until the mid-20^th century, acquired the words and accompanying gestures to express a rich range of human emotions—from long-suffering to ecstatic. 

Take verklempt, made famous in a Saturday Night Live skit, “Coffee Talk,” with Mike Myers and Co. A word meaning “Overcome with emotion!” even sounds dramatic. Or hear somebody kvetch, complaining as if they’re trekking over mountains in pinchy high heels.

For a broader, yet more nuanced appreciation of how other languages have grown up around feelings, the infographic above shows the rich variations of emotional experiencing evidenced in a host of other languages. Each could contribute to the ways we understand ourselves--and each other.

What is missing in translation is how much expressions of emotion demonstrate the national/linguistic character of the peoples who speak any given language. And how much the rest of us are missing out on by not being able to express our feelings with precision.

Beyond generic constellations — 

-->sadness, love, joy—that evoke emotion in a general way, language can plunge knife-like into a specific area of the heart with pinpoint precision. Why do these expressions arise in some cultures and not others?

Why would a Japanese mother, for example, use language that expresses the emotion between "bittersweet", "painful" and "wistful"? Were there generations of Japanese women whose cherished children broke their hearts? Do not mothers in all cultures feel such maternal heartsickness at times?

On the other end of the emotional color wheel, a key aspect of cheerfulness in Danish is hygee, a feeling of comfort and coziness; enjoying food and drink with friends and family. Are Americans too busy to distinguish general good cheer from the joys of intimacy? Or is that experience of too much closeness a thing of the rosy past, when (according to my nonagenarian mother) families would hang out nightly on the front porch sipping lemonade and greeting neighbors strolling down the street? Does such general bonhomie then contribute to a trust that makes people comfortable leaving the front door unlocked?

Umami and Gedempt by Any Other Name Would Taste as Yummy

Is it any wonder that, in almost every language there are expressions for food that hit the taste buds with a burst of emotion?

Sweet, sour, salty, bitter – the words that describe the combination of tastes the celebrated French chef Escoffier discovered plying his culinary trade that go beyond any of those individual sensations on the tongue to make something greater in the sum than in their parts: umami. So it goes with gedempt, a Yiddish word for something “slow-stewed and falling apart”, like a brisket so tender and tasty the meat peels away from the fork. Is it any wonder that Escoffier’s 19^th century “invention” of veal stock was the basis for a recipe known to every Yiddishe mamma from the Pale to the Bronx?

And is it any mystery that words like sweet, sour, salty and bitter – flavorings and tastes that materialize merely in the mind of the taster – also are used to describe our emotions? And that, when it comes to describing utter deliciousness, words alone are a weak substitute for the experience of tasting?

Leashing Emotion to Unleash Expression

The stories we tell others, in any language, may seem pale in the face of intense emotions where words do not even suffice to express. In large part, our ability to express how we feel depends on empathy — the ability of another to feel and relate to what I feel. In the emotional retelling of our stories – our joys, fears, shames, love – seems to come from a deep human impulse to share, and one that most connects to others whose recounting of similar, even universal stories may often reassure us that we are not alone, thus bring healing and health to our hearts, words alone cannot express.

Emotion is a whole body experience. Felt in the mind, body and heart, we are emotional beings. Between our feelings, our words, ourselves and others lies a universe.

Yet, if we speak out of anger, fear,  or even ecstasy, we are less apt to make ourselves understood. Psychologists and neuroscientists alike confirm that we are not in control of our rational minds. In the throes of intensity, it is difficult to have the presence of mind to understand ourselves, much less convey to others what is going on. 

Think first, talk later.

An Escoffier contemporary, the French author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, reveals the secret to connecting from heart to heart in The Little Prince: “It is only with the heart that one can see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.”

Speak from the heart, as the saying goes, and your story, no matter the limits of language, will touch other hearts receptive to the feeling.

This blog, we are a changin'

Artist: Dorothy Stevens

I listen to a young Bob Dylan as I write this post. "Come senators, congressmen,/Please heed the call/... For he who gets hurt is he who has stalled/...For the times they are a changin'."

http://www.swarthmore.edu/Library/peace/DGList/DGlist.expanded.htm

While these times feel far distant from Dylan's folk anthem of the 1960s but change is no less imperative. I am a far different person from that impressionable grade schooler whose older brother burned his draft card and fought against Vietnam. In the 1960s and '70s we all heard such clarioon calls to action: End this meaningless war! Equal rights for women! Equality among all people, no matter what their race! These were inspiring to an impressionable young girl just reaching adolescence.

Today there is no unifying ideal although the needs for social, political, environmental and economic justice are just as compelling, if not more so. We are living in a state of high anxiety. There is no common vision for a better world? Where are the voices of those fighting violence, discrimination and injustice, or driving change? Young people today may be called to action--or lulled to inaction--in myriad ways, through the echo chamber of Facebook pages where all the voices reflect their images back to each other or through the Twitter feed into the ether. The voices are fragmented and momentary.

Unlike the youth of the '60s who decided to take power into their own hands, those seeking change seem to have ceded their power, the better to deny any responsibility for the dire state of our world.

Occupy Wall Street At Times Square, New York City
World Wide Day Of Protest, October 15, 2011

Climate, food supply, terrorism, gun violence -- these are the crises we face, ever present. Stress, anxiety, poverty, addiction and disease epidemics that can jump the globe as tracked by Twitter: these have led us as a society to paralysis.

Our world is in crisis. The same old ways aren't working any more. Where are new remedies emerging? Who are the people willing to reframe the questions and try out new responses.

Is There a New Story Waiting to Be Told?
 However close new channels for communication and engagement in a world that is so closely interconnected, the power to make a differences seems far-removed. What is the call to action today? How can we answer? Who should we answer to?

In looking at old problems in new ways, can we drive innovation? Pass the Talking Stick seeks to tell our new story. How can we reframe crisis as opportunity? How do we use the science of story to illuminate solutions?

To begin, a few questions:

• Can we examine what stories we have been telling ourselves to see whether these portray our personal, social and political realities accurately? Are there other stories that are not being heard?
• Is there evidence that the brain retains information differently in story form than when presented through factual evidence? And if so, how to present statistics accurately yet with impact?
• People are hungry to learn. How do we teach researchers and technical subject matter experts to share their discoveries in multiple media and social media channels in plain language?

Senators, congressmen, mothers and fathers, we are shaping the world through the stories we tell ourselves, our children and each other.

Pass the Talking Stick
In fact, it is not just storytelling, but story sharing that makes us human; we all have something to say, but without an audience, it is all just babble.

So let's use this forum to tell a new story, not just about what has always been, but about what we can create. Together we can explore and realize a world in common.

The dire story of threat and fear of decline has created a world of anxiety, scarcity and uncertainty. Primitive passions appeal to the override mechanisms in our brain, awakening our default urge to run, freeze or fight.

But we know more than ever before about how our biological default mechanisms work for better and for worse, and we are discovering the tools to use planning, thinking, logic and awareness to shape a better human response.

Now is the time to use our enhanced awareness to evoke a more careful - or cared for - legacy for our children and theirs.

I suggest that if we have a new call to action today, it could be Tell-and-Listen. To tune in to each other through the power of story. What change can we put into action that will lead us to a less reactive, more conscious way of living?

Maybe the folksingers that spawned a generation of protesters was prescient in calling us together to "tune in and turn on." Today, Dylan's words may call us together as, collectively, we begin to shape this new story, buoyed by science.

"Come gather 'round people/Wherever you roam..."

CyberMonday and all that Spam

Dear Friends,

Among other interesting activities, I moderate comments on a health blog. While the blog is popular and, on any given day, we may receive 10-15 comments, in this very special time of the year, we are averaging more like a comment a minute.

While, in the main, no one objects to the blog's new found popularity, I might point out that most of these contributions seem to be unintelligible. Often, these are thinly disguised as actual comments to posts -- "Specifically where there is married life with no romance, you will have romance with no married life"-- is one I  noted as particularly irrelevant on a blog devoted to preventing teen drug abuse and addiction. Although one must also admire the daring of those discount pharmaceuticals attempting to peddle generic prescription drugs on a blog warning of the dangers of addiction!

Attention all spammers: I appreciate most those messages that demonstrate are outright selling as opposed to layering a thin veneer of commentary over an otherwise blatant spam. Nike's, Christian LaBoutain, Burberry, NFL jackets and Uggs are among the most popular, judging by the entries to-date. But social bookmarking and link building are also appreciative, though lesser known as brands.

But for those really inventive resellers, you cannot beat the creativity of wrapping a clearly fictitious article about the Israeli prime minister resigning and the PLO representative's reaction around the charade of selling pens and sunglasses:

        Israeli Defense Ecclesiastic [montblancpensonlinesale] Ehud Barak announced his acclimatization Monday, saying he inclination quit civil affairs in January to lavish more time with his family.

      His resigning mont blanc comes at a warmly delicate time for Israel, which is observing a tenuous cease-fire with the hostile Palestinian unit Hamas after an eight-day tiff that killed more than 160 people — the mind-blowing majority of them Palestinians in Gaza.

      Barak, who is married and the shepherd of three children, [montblancpensonlinesale] said Monday at a word talk in Tel Aviv that he will proceed as defense assist for the next three months, as elections are apposite in January. He said he won’t debate the elections.

     Hanan Ashrawi, a fellow of the Palestine Unshackling Consortium’s executive body, weighed in on the announcement.

     “I contemplate this signals identification [lunettesdesoleilraybans] of the futility of the military overtures in the adoption of fury as means of dealing with the Palestinians,” she said. “If it is for intimate reasons, we cannot opine, but if it’s recognition that his complete tear was based on the military proposition to public existence, then this demonstrates the recognition of the futility of militarism and violence.”

     Some Israeli factional commentators had speculated ahead of the commercial that Barak was planning to quit the government of Prime Churchman Benjamin Netanyahu to form a new center-left party.

A bid for Ehud Barak's shepharding a peace process in the Sinai, perhaps?

For all of the above, helpful links to the products abound, and in many languages: Japanese, French, Spanish, German, Dutch, English, and variations given fractured sellers helpers from Eastern Europe, not to mention the ever-present Spambots that must rely on Google algorithms and half-baked translations for their creative message management.

And the festive holiday season has just begun!

Question to the blogosphere: how are you managing this season's Spamalot? Surely there are better ways to see that actual questions and comments are addressed without succumbing to brand-name Season's Greetings!

And question to brands and their resellers: do you think your messages of cheerful consumption or comments wrapped around irrelevant stories are the most effective way of reaching consumers? Or is it just cheap and easy and you're thinking, "Couldn't hurt to cover all bases?"

I am curious to know...
Sincerely,

Robin Stevens Payes, Principal

Creating and Implementing Marketing Strategies
Health Communications and Social Marketing

WordsWork Communications LLC

Sleeping to Remember—And Forget - Dana Foundation

New research in neuroscience shows how cues during sleep can interrupt, or reinforce memories. Through functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), researchers can measure where in the brain these memories are stored, and what neural (or brain) pathways are involved in remembering specific events or people associated with the memory. The implications for learning are fascinating, as is the potential to disrupt triggers for stress and trauma.
Sleeping to Remember—And Forget - Dana Foundation

What do we really know, after all?

I went to see Candide last night – a musical opera based on Voltaire’s famous satirical novel (“All is for the best in the best of all possible worlds”) set to Leonard Bernstein’s music. It was a fabulous production by The Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C.

Bernstein decided to undertake the adaptation in 1953 upon the advice of his friend, playwright Lillian Hellman. At the time, Hellman was one of many artists, scientists and intellectuals under investigation by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Activities, the noted McCarthy hearings against alleged Communists. Hellman was one of many artist victims of this modern day witch hunt. Voltaire's 1758 satire of the institutions that held enormous sway over public opinion in his time - from the Catholic Church to the emperors, from physicians to philosophers - were intent on trying to impose their dogma, and control on the public. Even when the facts didn't line up with teachings - the inconvenience of the Inquisition being a notable breach of Christian spirit, for example - it was all for the best!

In a contemporary parallel, some politicians of our day insist that our country's Founders had God and right on their side in the original framing of the U.S. Constitution -- and that they are the special people who can read he Founders intentions correctly and prune our laws of anything that the framers and their successors didn't really intend, except those parts that don't suit their current ideology. No hypocrisy there!

As the French themselves are fond of saying, Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
What struck me about the "philosophy" behind Voltaire’s mocking words was how the best knowledge of his day had much of the science wrong. The best medicine then promoted bleeding (leeches) to cure disease, the auto-da-fe to “purify” religion, and Optimism as a philosophical explanation for every Job-like tragedy that befell the world and poor Candide, including earthquake, war, plague. What do we "know" today that will lead the scientists and philosophers 300 years from now to conclude that our best practices are equally misinformed?

It would seem that skepticism - questioning what is generally accepted as fact - is actually a healthy approach to counter the conventional wisdom. Candide's teacher, Professor Pangloss, tenaciously holds to his optimistic philosophy ("All is for the best in this best of all possible worlds") despite suffering these personal trials and tribulations: war, poverty, beatings, earthquakes, Auto-da-fe (the Inquisition's infamous public heretics "trials" which inevitably ended up in conviction and public execution), hanging and, finally, destitution. Equally, today, we might be skeptical of the absolutists who claim to "know" what is best for our country, for our children and for our future.

Fortunately, technology, communication, transportation and a healthy public debate in our democracy promote ever greater tools to engage in public skepticism. Through the Internet, television, social media, ever-more transparent government and the free press, Americans now have more power than ever to question, debate, learn and challenge the status quo.

Still, it is tempting to stay out of the debate and "cultivate one's garden", as Candide concludes at the bitter end of his story. By this time, Candide's one true love, the Lady Cunegonde, has lost her station, her beauty, her youth and her wealth. To engage in the conversation - to challenge conventional wisdom publicly - may leave one subject to ridicule or worse. But, as in Voltaire's time, satire can be a biting tool that, on the face of it, seems to endorse the authorities whose knowledge is "beyond question" while mocking their hypocrisy. A musical highlight of Candide is the lovely Cunegonde's famous comic soliloquy, "Glitter and Be Gay", lamenting that a lady of high nobility stripped of her title, wealth and family should become the sexual object for everyone from Catholic Cardinals, to the City of Lisbon's wealthiest and most influential men in exchange for baubles and expensive clothes. True to the teachings of Professor Pangloss even in the most horrific circumstances, Cunegonde searches for the best in the situation. The aria is here performed by the incomparably comic and gifted acress Kristen Chenoweth. Her high E-flat is a Wicked feat!

Shoutout: Get the Facts on Drugs

Today launches the first National Drug Facts Week challenging teens and adults who care about them to "shatter the myths" and learn the facts about drugs and addiction. In what may be a coincidence of timing, over the weekend, my daughter and I caught the Kennedy Center performance of the 2009 Tony award winning revival of the musical Hair, the myth-making 1968 Broadway musical that rocked the country with its portrayal of America’s rebellious youth. With its “peace, love and pot” philosophy, and youth revolt against the war in Vietnam, Hair captured a sense of American values gone off-track and a growing "Generation Gap" between young people and their parents.

In 1968, for the first time on stage, theatre-goers witnessed drug use onstage to the accompaniment of the drug anthem, “Hashish”, in what may be the most comprehensive musical index of illicit substances known at the time:

Hashish

Cocaine

Marijuana
Opium
LSD
DMT
STP, BLT
A&P, IRT

APC, alcohol

cigarettes, shoe polish, cough syrup, peyote
Equanil, dexamyl, camposine, chemadrine,
Thorazine, trilafon, dexadrine, benzedrine, methedrine,
S-E-X Y-O-U WOW!

It was a time of innocence and ignorance over what repeated drug use could do to your health - beyond sending users into psychedelic spasm. And, since this was an era before the emergence of the AIDS virus, no thought to what health risks might come from engaging in sex under the influence of drugs. The world of the ‘60s was a very different place from today.

The drug culture is still with us in 2010, and, arguably today doesn't have much to do with freedom, love or rebellion against the establishment. The stresses in our world, our schools, our families and communities, contribute to an atmosphere where "escape" sounds like an easier choice than facing stressful realities. In a media culture that invades our brains 24/7, young people need only tune into MTV or iTunes to hear – and experience - ample drug-inspired references composed to a rap, rock or pop beat.



A big difference today is that we know so much more about drugs, how they influence the brain, how young people’s brains are developing, and the effects that drugs can have to hijack healthy brain development.

Unfortunately, in the 21st century, growth of prescription drug abuse – opioids (painkillers) and stimulants (prescribed to treat the symptoms of ADHD). These drugs are often found in family medicine cabinets, or bought, begged or stolen from friends who use them safely under a doctor’s care. Though not "illegal", they also alter the way the brain functions. When used as prescribed, Rx drugs are safe and effective. When you use them in ways your doctor hasn't sanctioned -- say, to stay awake, study, party, or relax -- the effect can be quite different and lead to abuse and addiction.

The famous Harvard Professor and Psychologist Timothy Leary's crafted a catchy message to young people of the '60s, "Turn on, tune in and drop out," by experimenting with hallucinogenic drugs, and so creating the drug myth that recreational use of drugs was a plus. But today, we know so much more about what drug abuse can do to disrupt people's lives.

This week, you have the opportunity to get smart about what drugs might do, before you act. Learn the facts about drugs and addiction, then think twice.