Singapore Will Pay You to Read Books Instead of Scrolling
Singapore Is Paying People to Put Down Their Phones and Read Books
Singapore's National Library Board launched ReadSG, a five-year pilot that rewards 15 minutes of daily reading with 20 virtual coins, redeemable at 1,000 coins per Singapore dollar. A parallel Read for Good track unlocks up to S$150,000 for charity if participants log 7.5 million collective minutes. Governments worldwide are watching whether micropayments and gamification can break phone-centric habits at population scale.
It says something specific about 2026 that a government created a financial incentive to make reading competitive with a scroll.
- tombert
I read a lot, and I own a lot of physical books, but I almost never actually read physical books anymore. I'm one of the happy few that used my Kindle for more than a week after getting it as a gift.
I find that reading on an ereader is many times easier for me, primarily because I can make the text gigantic and I don't lose track of my place on the page nearly as often. I'm not dyslexic (I've been tested), but I do think that there's some issue with my brain where if the text is small I really can't follow it. On all my computers the text is gigantic and even then I will click and highlight text as I'm reading so don't lose place. I would love to be paid to read but I don't think I'd love to be paid to read physical books.
I remember my grandmother was wholly unconvinced that my Kindle was a different thing than an iPad or a Game Boy, and that it was not "real" reading, for whatever reason.
- kingstnap
The headline makes it seem more monetary than it actually is.
https://www.read.gov.sg/join-the-readsg-challenge
It seems like turning points into money is just a happens to exist sort of mechanic. Enough to write a headline that they are technically "paying you". The real mechanics are much more typical gamification. Like earning xp, streaks, leaderboards, limited edition goodies at events, prize draws, collective goals.
The strict money payout is S$0.02 per 15 minutes at most once a day. Obviously if you were doing this it would be more for the rest of the dopamine then hoping to buy a candy bar after like 50 days.
- miles_io
My kids would be all over this. Maybe I should start paying myself for reading documentation.
- andsoitis
> to build daily reading habits among a phone-first population
Reading is fundamental.
EDIT: Other skills and habits that you can then build on reading: critical thinking, reasoning, detection and handling own biases, numeracy, financial literacy, and more. All these dimensions are manipulated via phones and the apps on them, so you need a firewall.
Also: writing. Cursive writing.
- itake
Singapore libraries are really annoying for foreigners because they don’t let you use the WiFi.
Thailand at least gives you a 1 hour pass.
Not that anyone asked but my ranking of public libraries in Asia
1/ Taiwan
2/ HK
3/ Thailand
4/ Laos (private libraries are cute, but hot…)
4/ Vietnam (Bring your passport!)
5/ Singapore
I haven’t been to a library in Japan or S Korea. I tried working from a community center in Japan but I couldn’t figure how it works.
- ovin_dal
Cool idea, leveraging microtransactions for literacy. Curious how they prevent abuse or just "gaming the system" without actually reading.
- lend000
While books > articles > audiobooks > podcasts > listening to music > TV > short-form content, it's all content consumption in the end, and while that's fine, I think it's a little overhyped.
I prefer to draw the distinction at creating vs doing vs consuming, and focus on balancing the time spent consuming (which is a natural part of enjoying life, but usually people consume way too much) unless it's in the service of one of the other two categories (e.g. consuming articles to learn/inspire the creation of something better or plan a trip to do something, etc.)
- Sorrel47
Micropayments for reading? Curious if this actually fosters intrinsic love for books, or just turns it into a chore for cash.