Paid to Read: What Singapore Is Offering
As a Singaporean living overseas, I find that any Singapore-related news captures my attention, particularly stories that appear in the foreign press. Over the past week, I have come across news about the ReadSG Challenge, a national reading initiative by the Singapore government paying its citizens to read, both on social media and in mainstream outlets like The Guardian and CNN.
How the Reading Scheme Works
The objective is to encourage young people to read, luring them away from doomscrolling on their phones. Readers have to log on to the government site and read for 15 minutes or more a day. In return, the site pays them in virtual coins. Everyone may log on only once a day, and 50 daily reading sessions earn $1.00 (EUR 0.68).
Gamification: Making Reading a Game
Clearly, this scheme will not provide you with a windfall. Rather, it is tapping into the gamification trend, which has become increasingly popular over the last fifteen years. The Cambridge Dictionary defines gamification as “the practice of making activities more like games in order to make them more interesting or enjoyable”. The Singapore government hopes the scheme will help young Singaporeans build a reading habit. Young readers might initially accept the challenge because of dopamine hits from gamification.
My 15 Minutes of Reading in Secondary School
The idea of reading for 15 minutes strikes a chord with me and reminds me of my secondary school days in Singapore. If my memory serves me right, we had to bring a fiction book to school every day. There, we read for 15 minutes first thing in the morning, before the first lesson started. The books had to be in English; I believe the idea was more about improving our English than about building a reading habit. Anyone who forgot a book was punished, either sent out of the classroom or made to stand in it (I can’t remember which) for the entire session.
Since I had always loved reading, the 15-minute session was a pleasure for me. However, I always feared that I would forget my book and be punished. Being disciplined in public, imagining the whole school staring and gossiping about me, was mortifying for the thin-skinned adolescent I was. And yet, was it that daily discipline that turned my love of reading into a habit? If so, would money work as well as fear?
Looking back now, I cannot even say whether a teacher ever punished me. Fuzzy memories seem to suggest that a teacher did chastise me. Yet I am not that certain. Or am I deliberately suppressing the memory of an unwanted event, one too embarrassing for me to deal with?
Reading in the Age of Doomscrolling
For someone like me who loves reading (and owning books), it’s inconceivable that spending 15 minutes a day reading seems such a hurdle for others. Indeed, it is quite depressing to think that Singapore has to come up with ways to encourage people to read. The same is true, sadly, of many other parts of the world.
On the other hand, I must confess that I find it increasingly hard to concentrate long enough to read a book. Honestly speaking, if I could read continuously for 15 minutes, I would consider it a feat for that day. Stray thoughts often distract me, leading me down a rabbit hole on the Internet or into doomscrolling. If it is not the stray thoughts, it is the instant notifications. These range from emails, text messages and breaking news to kudos and likes on various social media platforms.
One thing to be thankful for: I read whenever I can during the day. In this way, all those five-to-ten-minute sessions add up to more than 15 minutes a day! The point is, even I, an avid middle-aged reader, find it hard to concentrate on a book. Little wonder, then, that millennials and those born after them struggle to concentrate on one for 15 minutes.
Paid to Read, and Then What?
Some might argue that financial incentives will not build a sustainable reading habit, and that these new readers will stop reading once the scheme ends. I believe, however, that reading is addictive, provided you read books on subjects that truly interest you.
To expose novices to different types of books, I think that the government can do more. For instance, they can complement the new reading scheme with programmes that help them discover their interests and find books that match those interests. Readers will eventually get hooked on reading, with or without the financial incentives.
Can a Reading Habit Be Lost?
However, does that mean that once the reading habit is ingrained in you, it cannot be dislodged? And does being hooked mean you actually get the benefits—better brain health, stress reduction and sharper thinking? In “The Threat of Technology to Students’ Reading Brains”, an article from the Albert Shanker Institute, there are two other aspects that we need to consider to build a sustainable reading habit.
First, the media format that we read in. Reading strategies should focus more on books in print than in digital. According to Professor Maryanne Wolf of UCLA, it is deep reading, and not just reading, that develops advanced cognitive ability. Deep reading requires readers to reflect on the authors’ ideas and expand on them. To do that, a reader should not be constantly diverted from their reading material. That means no endless scrolling and the usual digital distractions. Wolf believes it’s best to start younger readers with reading in print and gradually transition them to digital format as they grow older while teaching them how to practise deep reading in different media.
Second, the article argues that the sheer amount of information bombarding us undermines the cognitive skills readers build. Flooded, our minds cannot hold on to any of it long enough to turn it into learning. So we have to keep training our brains back into “deep reading” mode. A reading habit, in other words, can be lost. It’s no wonder after all that my concentration has significantly diminished despite my love for reading.
Beyond Being Paid to Read
The ReadSG Challenge is an innovative scheme to advocate reading. Nevertheless, it’s only one step to building a country of readers and thinkers. I’d like to know how reading science can work with digital technology rather than against it.