The kids aren't reading all right

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Kids Aren't Reading Alright" – Today, Explained

Podcast Information:

• Title: Today, Explained
• Host/Author: Vox
• Description: Today, Explained is Vox's daily news explainer podcast. Hosts Sean Rameswamy and Noelle King guide listeners through the most important stories of the day.
• Episode: The Kids Aren't Reading Alright
• Release Date: November 20, 2024

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Introduction: The Decline of Reading Among College Students

In the November 20, 2024 episode of Today, Explained, hosts Sean Rameswamy and Noelle King delve into a concerning trend within higher education: the declining reading habits of college students. This episode explores the multifaceted implications of reduced reading, the underlying causes, and potential solutions to reinvigorate critical reading skills among the younger generation.

The Current State of Reading in Higher Education

Beth McMurtry, a senior writer at the Chronicle of Higher Education, serves as the episode's primary expert, shedding light on the diminishing emphasis on reading within college curricula.

• Reduced Reading Assignments:

  • Quote [02:32]: "Maybe 15 years ago they assigned five novels and today they're assigning one. Or they may be eliminating academic articles altogether."

  Professors report a significant decrease in assigned reading materials. Where once multiple novels and dense academic articles were standard, the modern syllabus often features minimal reading requirements.

• Lack of Critical Reading Skills:

  • Quote [02:32]: "Students are coming to college lacking critical reading skills. They might be asked to summarize what they've read, and they fundamentally change the meaning of it."

  Beyond the quantity, the quality of reading has also declined. Students struggle with summarizing, comparing, and critically analyzing texts, leading to ineffective learning outcomes.

Impact on Education and Student Performance

The reduction in reading assignments has tangible effects on student performance and engagement.

• Educational Challenges:

  • Quote [04:10]: "Professors understand that if students are not doing reading, they have to change things up. Otherwise, they will have a really bad class session."

  Educators are adapting by incorporating alternative materials like news articles, essays, and videos to maintain student engagement, albeit at the expense of deeper, more comprehensive reading.

• Learning Outcomes:

  • Quote [09:21]: "More than 40% of seniors meet none of the college readiness benchmarks. The fifth consecutive year test scores have declined."

  Standardized test scores, including SAT and ACT, have shown a downward trend, with over 40% of seniors not meeting college readiness benchmarks. This decline is partly attributed to reduced reading and critical thinking skills cultivated during K-12 education.

Underlying Causes: Technology and the Pandemic

Several factors contribute to the decline in reading habits among students, with technology and the COVID-19 pandemic playing pivotal roles.

• Rise of Smartphones and Social Media:

  • Quote [05:30]: "The introduction of smartphones and the rise of social media have affected all of us. We are losing our ability to concentrate. We are getting distracted more easily."

  The pervasive use of smartphones and social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram has shifted attention spans, making sustained reading more challenging for students.

• Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic:

  • Quote [06:31]: "Teaching in 2020, during the height of the pandemic, led to a lot of traumatic experiences. Teacher burnout was at an all-time high. A lot of students were depressed."

  The sudden transition to online learning disrupted traditional educational practices. Teachers faced burnout, and students experienced increased levels of stress and depression, further diminishing their engagement with reading.

• Shift in Educational Practices:

  • Quote [07:11]: "Students were learning less and they were reading less. And at the same time, grading changed a little bit. There was more leniency around grading in some school districts."

  Changes in grading policies during the pandemic, such as grade inflation and leniency, may have inadvertently lowered academic standards, including reading requirements.

Expert Insights: Beth McMurtry and Marianne Wolf

Beth McMurtry: Educational Journalism Perspective

Beth McMurtry provides a comprehensive analysis of the issue, linking systemic educational challenges to the decline in reading.

• Educational System Flaws:

  • Quote [10:22]: "We have to remember that the students didn't create this environment. We, the adults, created the environment and the system that they lived in."

  McMurtry emphasizes that the current state of student reading habits is a consequence of long-standing educational practices and societal changes, not inherent deficiencies in the students themselves.

• Long-Term Cultural Shifts:

  • Quote [10:47]: "If we're shifting to an oral written culture again, if we're shifting to a multimedia culture, what does that mean? What are we gaining, even as we lose some of the deep reading that we have been used to doing?"

  She draws parallels to historical shifts from oral to written cultures, suggesting that while certain reading skills may be waning, new forms of literacy are emerging in the digital age.

Marianne Wolf: Cognitive Neuroscience Perspective

Marianne Wolf, a cognitive neuroscientist and director at UCLA's Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice, provides an in-depth exploration of the cognitive implications of reduced reading.

• Deep Reading’s Cognitive Benefits:

  • Quote [16:03]: "The brain had to build up a new circuit. Cognition, language, perception, memory, but also feeling, affect. So we build this circuitry, and then over time, we actually have the capacity to elaborate it."

  Wolf explains that deep reading develops complex neural circuitry that enhances various cognitive functions, including empathy, critical analysis, and memory.

• Empathy and Critical Analysis:

  • Quote [16:53]: "Empathy, critical analysis, and a sense of sanctuary are essential components of deep reading that are being lost."

  She highlights that reading fosters empathy by allowing individuals to immerse themselves in others' lives and thoughts, while also enhancing critical thinking skills necessary for evaluating information.

• Challenges with Alternative Media:

  • Quote [20:21]: "Now, is it the same as reading at the immersive level? For some it is, but by and large it does skip what is called comprehension monitoring."

  While audiobooks and digital media offer alternative ways to consume information, Wolf argues that they often lack the depth and comprehension monitoring inherent in traditional reading, which are crucial for deep cognitive engagement.

The Importance of Deep Reading in the Digital Age

Wolf underscores the unique benefits of traditional reading compared to other forms of media consumption.

• Cognitive and Emotional Engagement:

  • Quote [19:56]: "Books have become like vinyl. They are the antithesis of the get it done and over with mode."

  Unlike the fragmented and fast-paced nature of digital media, books require sustained attention and foster a deeper emotional and cognitive connection to the content.

• Spatial Memory and Kinesthetic Learning:

  • Quote [20:18]: "The palpable kinesthetic nature of the book aids spatial memory."

  Physical interaction with books enhances spatial memory, allowing readers to recall information based on the book's physical layout, a benefit often lost with digital reading formats.

• Inner Dialogue and Reflection:

  • Quote [22:14]: "Reading allows for an inner dialogue and reflection that media like videos or social media do not."

  The solitary and reflective nature of reading encourages personal insights and self-awareness, fostering a deeper understanding of both the material and oneself.

Solutions and Path Forward

Addressing the decline in reading requires concerted efforts from educators, parents, and society at large.

• Modeling Love for Reading:

  • Quote [23:24]: "We have to model love of what happens when we are entering that state."

  Wolf advocates for adults to demonstrate their passion for reading, thereby inspiring younger generations to value and engage in deep reading practices.

• Challenging Educational Practices:

  • Quote [24:48]: "How would we let our next generation just go down that slippery slope into the shallows?"

  Educators must resist the trend towards superficial learning and strive to incorporate more comprehensive reading and critical thinking exercises into their curricula.

• Balancing Digital and Traditional Literacy:

  • Quote [10:47]: "If we're shifting to an oral written culture again, what does that mean?"

  Embracing new forms of literacy while preserving the cognitive benefits of traditional reading can create a more balanced and effective educational ecosystem.

Conclusion: A Call to Action

The episode concludes with a poignant reminder of the profound cognitive and emotional benefits that deep reading provides. As society becomes increasingly digital and fast-paced, the imperative to revive and maintain robust reading habits among young people becomes ever more critical. By modeling a love for reading and re-evaluating educational practices, there is hope that the next generation can reclaim the depth and empathy that comes from engaging deeply with written works.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• Beth McMurtry [02:32]: "Students are coming to college lacking critical reading skills. They might be asked to summarize what they've read, and they fundamentally change the meaning of it."
• Beth McMurtry [04:10]: "Professors understand that if students are not doing reading, they have to change things up. Otherwise, they will have a really bad class session."
• Beth McMurtry [09:21]: "More than 40% of seniors meet none of the college readiness benchmarks. The fifth consecutive year test scores have declined."
• Beth McMurtry [10:22]: "We have to remember that the students didn't create this environment. We, the adults, created the environment and the system that they lived in."
• Marianne Wolf [16:53]: "Empathy, critical analysis, and a sense of sanctuary are essential components of deep reading that are being lost."
• Marianne Wolf [19:56]: "Books have become like vinyl. They are the antithesis of the get it done and over with mode."
• Marianne Wolf [20:21]: "Now, is it the same as reading at the immersive level? For some it is, but by and large it does skip what is called comprehension monitoring."

Final Thoughts: "The Kids Aren't Reading Alright" offers a compelling examination of a critical issue facing modern education and society. Through expert insights and thoughtful analysis, Today, Explained highlights the urgent need to address declining reading habits and underscores the profound benefits that deep, meaningful reading can offer to individuals and communities alike.

Transcript

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Have you heard of social annotation? It's kind of like the annotation you used to do in a textbook or a novel with a pencil or a pen, except now we're marking up the margins as a group on our screens with our machines. Social annotation is actually how we edit every episode of Today Explained.

[Noelle King]

I'm Noelle King. It's Today Explained.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

But you know where else. Social annotation is huge on college campuses. Students are completing their reading assignments on social annotation apps where they can comment and ask questions in the digital margins of a reading assignment. And teachers can track how much time students spend with a given article, essay or journal. And our old friend AI will even grade students reading for teachers. And why would teachers need these kinds of tools? Because college kids just aren't that into reading anymore. What on earth are we going to do about that? Ahead on the show today.

[Marianne Wolf]

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[Sean Ramaswamy]

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[Beth McMurtry]

I'm Beth McMurtry and I'm a senior writer at the Chronicle of Higher Education.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Okay, you're a senior writer, but we're here to talk to you about reading. Why are we talking to you about reading? What's going on with reading?

[Beth McMurtry]

Sorry, are we starting or we just. You're just.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

This is it. Yeah. It's so casual.

[Beth McMurtry]

Well, there's a lot that's going on with reading. When it comes to reading. One of the things that I've been hearing a lot from a lot of different faculty members is that students simply aren't doing the reading. A lot of professors are finding that if they assign anything that's more than five or 10 pages long, students tell them that they can't do it, that they get distracted, that they get exhausted, that they get lost in the reading, and then they just give up. Another element to this, too, though, and one I think that is the most alarming to professors, is that students are coming to college lacking critical reading skills. They might be asked to summarize what they've read, and they fundamentally change the meaning of it. They can't summarize it. They might be asked to compare and contrast two readings, and they simply can't do it. It's a fascinating phenomenon that we're facing because, yes, we assume that by the time you get to college, you know, to read, obviously people can still pick up a book or an article and get the gist of it. But what we're talking about now is like reading a dense or complicated or lengthy article or textbook or novel. That's what seems to have been fading with this generation.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

And so I take it, a class that might require students to read, what, four or five books? Is it functioning the way it used to when I was in college 15 years ago?

[Beth McMurtry]

No. I think you would. If you went into a college classroom today or you looked at a college syllabus, you would probably be surprised at how little reading is assigned. I mean, professors understand that they have to kind of meet students where they are. They understand that if students are not doing reading, they have to change things up. Otherwise they will have a really bad class session, and they will have students who simply aren't doing the work. So what I've been hearing from professors is maybe 15 years ago they assigned five novels and today they're assigning one. Or they may be eliminating academic articles altogether. Those really dense academic articles that we all struggled with, and students simply can't read them.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Reading research articles may be a different type of reading than you are used to. This tutorial will help you create a strategy for reading and understanding this type of information.

[Beth McMurtry]

They're substituting in news articles or essays. More professors are introducing videos.

[Marianne Wolf]

Hey, y'all.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

I'm Nick, and this is my video blog and podcast.

[Noelle King]

I'm Noel King.

[Beth McMurtry]

It's Today Explained and other sort of original content as a way to kind of get students engaged in the course without saying, I need you to read a book a week to get through this class.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

How did we get here? This didn't happen overnight, did it?

[Beth McMurtry]

No, it didn't. Because what we're Talking about here are kind of structural or systemic societal and educational challenges. So let's start with the one that everybody knows about, which is the introduction of smartphones and the rise of social media that has affected all of us. We are losing our ability to concentrate. We are getting distracted more easily. I remember talking to one professor, an English professor. He has always asked his students to tell him their reading story, their reading narrative. He wants to know what their experiences with reading have been. And he said it wasn't that long ago that they would talk about things like going to the library or seeing their parents reading the newspaper over breakfast or having their parents read to them at night. Now they talk about things like reading on TikTok, reading on Instagram.

[Marianne Wolf]

I like my suitcase.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Reading what on TikTokers. It's all video.

[Beth McMurtry]

Yeah. If you think about the words on the screen. Fragmented, incomplete sentences. Now, the pandemic did have a huge effect on students, unsurprisingly, as we all moved to Zoom and students went to Zoom school. I have to go to school now.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Yeah.

[Beth McMurtry]

Teachers are trying really hard to keep students engaged, to keep students online even if their cameras were off.

[Marianne Wolf]

Good morning, y'all. Okay, so as y'all know, today is a virtual learning day. That means, Lewis, that we can see you.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Having to teach in 2020, during the height of the pandemic led to a lot of traumatic experiences. Teacher burnout was at an all time high. A lot of students were depressed. It was just a lot of bad things going on.

[Marianne Wolf]

I don't know about you, but this.

[Beth McMurtry]

School year has been kind of tough for me, and I've had to rethink a lot of things that I do traditionally. So students were learning less and they were reading less. And at the same time, grading changed a little bit. There was more leniency around grading in some school districts. Teachers might have been told, you know, give everybody at least a 50%, even if they didn't do the work or grade for attendance or grade for participation. And what that did is I think it gave students a false sense of what was required of them, something that they have since taken into college. If we want to step even farther back, we need to talk about the testing culture in schools, because I think that has really fundamentally changed how we teach reading. Many of us remember, if we're old enough, we remember reading multiple books over the school year, maybe even writing book reports or writing essays. When you teach to the test, you're basically assigning short essays, you're assigning paragraphs, you're assigning excerpts from longer books. And then students are asked to say, discern the meaning in this paragraph or talk about the writing style or the use of metaphor. And as one professor described it to me, it turns reading into a scavenger hunt. Right. So students were taught to read in this way and they come into college reading this way. And then professors who, you know, maybe didn't fully understand what was, was happening in the K12 system are saying, what is going on here? My students don't have critical reading skills. If you think of reading like exercise, they weren't exercising. Right. They weren't engaging in the act of reading.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

You know, this might be an insensitive question, but do we have any data that suggests whether in addition to reading less students are, I don't know, getting dumber?

[Beth McMurtry]

I think if you look at certain tests, there has been learning loss. If you look at maybe SAT and ACT trend lines. Right. They've been going down a little bit.

[Noelle King]

Let's talk about those college admission test scores.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

They are dropping lower than they've ever been.

[Noelle King]

More than 40% of seniors meet none of the college readiness benchmarks. The fifth consecutive year test scores have declined. Now the question what is to blame the pandemic or something else?

[Beth McMurtry]

If you talk to or survey superintendents and teachers, they might say a significant portion of their students are doing more poorly on math and on English. So there has definitely been documented learning loss in K12 that I think has been tied to the pandemic.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

So is that an argument professors can make here? If nothing else, if you want to be as smart as your predecessors in your position, do the reading.

[Beth McMurtry]

This generation is very self critical. So telling students that they're dumb or dumber than previous generations I think just feeds this spiral of anxiety. I don't think that's a way forward for anybody.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Okay, sorry.

[Beth McMurtry]

I think we have to remember that the students didn't create this environment. We, the adults, created the environment and the system that they lived in. Right. Like this is the result of our handiwork. So we kind of have to ask ourselves if we're unhappy with the skills and abilities students are coming out of high school with and coming into college with. Do we care enough to change that?

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Do you think this trend can be.

[Beth McMurtry]

Turned around when it comes to reading? I think it helps to take the long view. I thought it was interesting when I was reporting the story that a couple of different people talked about the shift from the oral to the written culture. Like thousands of years ago, when writing was first introduced, people mourned the loss of the oral culture, the oral tradition, and they just thought of writing as like a negative. Like nobody would say that today. But the point is that if we're shifting to an oral written culture again, if we're shifting to a multimedia culture, what does that mean? What are we gaining, even as we lose some of the deep reading that we have been used to doing? And the truth is, we don't know yet because we're just at the beginning of the shift.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Beth McMurtry is a senior writer at the Chronicle of Higher Education. You can read her if you're into that sort of thing, @chronicle.com when we return, we're going to talk about what's going on in your noggin when you're reading and why you might miss that sensation when it's gone. A little food for thought coming up on TODAY Explained.

[Noelle King]

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[Beth McMurtry]

I received the percale duvet cover set.

[Marianne Wolf]

And that came with the duvet cover as well as two shams for my pillows and they're both great. I love the way it looks on.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

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[Marianne Wolf]

It feels when I sleep. I'm comfortable all night long and it was super easy to put on. Some duvet covers can be tough, but the Quince Duvet covers are made really well. The buttons are sturdy.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

It's been great.

[Noelle King]

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[Marianne Wolf]

Take a look.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

It's in a book today. Explained Cut. What is that? Not what it says. Marianne Wolf has probably read more books than you this year.

[Marianne Wolf]

Oh my goodness. Probably somewhere between 50 and 75.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

50 and 75.

[Marianne Wolf]

I have a reading life. I learned to book end my day, which means I begin with a book and I end with a book.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Marianne is so big on reading we had to ask professor, are you in the pocket of big book?

[Marianne Wolf]

I don't know what it is.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

We also asked her some questions she could answer, like why it seems that most people are choosing the opposite path. She is when it comes to reading books.

[Marianne Wolf]

You know, the repercussions of the digital culture are such that we never knew what I considered the pernicious effects of the kind of efficiency that the digital screen gives us. So the book is the antithesis of the get it done and over with mode. Books have become like vinyl. You know, for though that Emily Dickinson would say for that select society, that shouldn't be the case.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

I'm sure there's a lot of people in our audience who know exactly what you mean. But for all the people listening who need to be convinced that they're actually missing out on something, what do you think they're missing out on?

[Marianne Wolf]

So Sean, I'm going to answer in two modes. I'm going to answer as a cognitive Neuroscientist who studies the reading brain. Okay, and I'm going to answer as a former English literature major. So I'm going to first start with the cognitive neuroscience. The reality is that no one on this earth was meant to read. The brain had to build up a new circuit. And that new circuit connects all these amazing parts of the brain. Cognition, language, perception, memory, but also feeling, affect. So we build this circuitry, and then over time, we actually have the capacity to elaborate it. It becomes ever more sophisticated, and when it becomes sophisticated, it begins to have a circuit. I call the circuit for deep reading and figuring how the new information meets or does not meet the information stored already. Most important to me are the three. The three big deep reading processes. Empathy, Sean. It takes time, but the brain connects the ability to leave, really leave the page and enter the lives and thoughts and feelings of others who are completely different. Whether it's a completely different historical epoch or a different culture, religion, etcetera, you are entering that life. That's empathy. Next, and probably never more important than this moment is critical analysis. We have a frontal lobe dance in which we say, ah, this is what is meant. Oh, no, this is this. I refute this because it's not true. So we have this evaluation process, but it takes time. And the end is a real sense, whether it's true misinformation or, worst of all, especially these days, intentional disinformation. Now, the third deep reading process is one that doesn't always happen, and that's this almost like sanctuary feeling of being so immersed that this is where the novelist Proust comes in. In my work, he said, the heart of reading is when we enter the wisdom of the author and go beyond it to discover our own wisdom, our own insights, our own best thoughts. Most of the people who are not reading books aren't reading at that level. But from my perspective as an English literature major, they're not just skimming the information and getting, you know, just the gist. They're skimming the opportunity to enter another life.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Are we missing out when we read a dozen articles before we go to bed on our phone or first thing when we wake up? Are we missing out if we decide to listen to Moby Dick as an audiobook while we commute over the course of a month instead of sitting down and reading it every day when we get home from work?

[Marianne Wolf]

So every single time I'm asked this.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Question, oh, no, someone's asked you that before.

[Marianne Wolf]

Oh, pshaw, I blew it. No, you ask it because, and I have answered it because it is on the top of everyone's mind. I love audiobooks and I especially like them for commuting or for. And I work with a lot of individuals with dyslexia. That's one of the best ways they can get information. Now, now, is it the same as reading at the immersive level? For some it is, but by and large it does skip what is called comprehension monitoring. That's when we're reading and we are actually checking ourselves, checking what we have, not what we have missed, what we have skipped. And in the audio version, by and large, we don't go back. There are many other differences, but I'll name one in particular that's important for development and for especially children and individuals over time. And that is the palpable kinesthetic nature of the book because it aids spatial memory. So Sean, here's a book I could find. Oh, it's left side lower, about a third of the way through. I have a spatial memory that we aren't even aware of. So there's, there's all these extra, if you will, affordances when we have the physical printed book.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Are you worried? You've clearly pointed out that reading books opens up our minds to a world of possibilities that otherwise we wouldn't be open to. And yet we're seeing this downward trend.

[Marianne Wolf]

I'm mostly worried about the young Junot. Diaz said it's the closest thing to telepathy humans ever get. And that's an amazing, amazingly beautiful, almost mind boggling opportunity that goes missing. It just plain goes missing when you do not ever understand what that sense of interiority, that sense of immersion can give you. I'll give you the tiniest example. Last night, okay, I probably have Covid. I feel really rotten.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

You just violated your own hippo.

[Marianne Wolf]

So I'm thinking, you know, oh, no, I feel bad and I have to go talk to Sean in the morning. I have to have a voice. I'm feeling miserable, self pitying. And then I think, how can I cheer myself up?

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Did you read a book?

[Marianne Wolf]

And I went and read a half a book.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Amazing.

[Marianne Wolf]

I read a half a book and did I feel better? Yes, I felt good enough to come on your show.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

How do we convince kids that they're missing out? Because the phone is just so much easier and so much more available. And there's quick hits of dopamine, the kind of hits that you'd have to wait to get to the end of the chapter or the end of the novel. They're just waiting for you on TikTok every six seconds. You know, how do you win against that?

[Marianne Wolf]

We have to model love.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Love.

[Marianne Wolf]

We have to love. We have to model love of what happens when we are entering that state. And I think part of the problem is that we give up before we try. Great books increase the humanity of our world. And I think we are succumbing to the idea that, you know, everything's efficient, everything is, you know, has to be done quickly, and we have to go with whatever the kids want. How would we let our next generation just go down that slippery slope into the shallows? That's what Nicholas Carr and my colleagues in Norway call shallow reading.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

And Lady Gaga, I believe, also calls it the shallows in the shallow, shallow.

[Marianne Wolf]

Ah, did she? Well, good for her. It's not just our young, it's all of us. And when I said model, I wasn't kidding. Parents have to model, but that requires some tough things on the parents and teachers. You know, you're going against the tide, but if you don't, we're going to have a. What is that? What was that movie where everyone, the humans, they had given all of their tasks to the robot and finally they did. They were just these obese creatures. What was that?

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Was that Wally?

[Marianne Wolf]

Yes, Wally.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Cupcake in a cup.

[Marianne Wolf]

Wow, look at that. We're all gonna be wallies, you know, we're gonna be cerebral wallies out there. Don'.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Marianne Wolf. She is a cognitive neuroscientist and the director of the center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners and Social justice at ucla. We sincerely hope she feels better soon. Peter Balan Rosen likes big books and he cannot lie. Amina Al Saadi edited We Can't Deny We Were mixed by Andrea Christian's daughter and Patrick Boyd, who are great listeners. And Laura Bullard fact checked. She packs all of her books into her suitcase.

[Beth McMurtry]

I like.

[Marianne Wolf]

I like my suitcase.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

This is Today Explained. I'm Sean Ramasworm and I have to.

[Marianne Wolf]

Go to school now.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Yeah. Do you feel like your leads never lead anywhere and you're making content that no one sees and it takes forever.

[Beth McMurtry]

To build a campaign?

[Marianne Wolf]

Well, that's why we built HubSpot.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

It's an AI powered customer platform that builds campaigns for you, tells you which.

[Noelle King]

Leads are worth knowing, and makes writing.

[Sean Ramaswamy]

Blogs, creating videos and posting on social a breeze. So now it's easier than ever to be a marketer. Get [e-mail] marketers support for this podcast comes from Stripe. Stripe is a payments and billing platform supporting millions of businesses around the world, including companies like uber, BMW and DoorDash. Stripe has helped countless startups and estab companies alike reach their growth targets, make progress on their missions, and reach more customers globally. The platform offers a suite of specialized features and tools to fast track growth like Stripe Billing, which makes it easy to handle subscription based charges, invoicing and all recurring revenue management needs. You can learn how Stripe helps companies of all sizes make [e-mail] that's stripe.com to learn more. Stripe Make Progress.