Singapore Pays People To Put Down Their Phones and Just Read

Can paying people to spend 15 minutes a day reading actually improve an entire population’s literacy and overall level of intelligence? This is the latest idea from the Singapore government aimed at trying to help people of all ages have a small financial incentive to read more.

“The country has launched a new initiative designed to turn reading into a daily habit. Spend at least 15 minutes reading, record the session through the government’s platform, and you’ll receive 20 virtual coins. Collect 1,000 of them, and you can exchange them for S$ 1, or roughly 80 cents in the US. Since only one reading session counts each day, reaching that first dollar takes 50 days. Nobody is getting rich here, obviously. But that’s what makes the idea interesting. The cash functions more like the achievement badge or daily streak you’d find in an app, except this one tries to pull your attention away from the screen.”

The gamification of this idea and the behavioral psychology behind it is sound. Despite the relatively small payout, the idea of the streak combined with the growing desire among people of all ages to find more time away from their devices could make this a case study in how to shift a population’s reading and media consumption habits through the formation of new habits for reading. As the national library board chief Melissa Tam notes, “we know that habits are built through small, consistent actions. So, we are starting with a simple goal: just read for 15 minutes a day. On the bus, before bed or over lunch.”

Of course, it also raises questions about what sort of reading materials are available through the government portal and whether those are locked to certain topics - but it will be interesting to watch whether this small incentive along with gamified rewards are enough to help break the toxic habits of doomscrolling and get people reading again.