Singapore is paying its citizens to pick up a book for at least 15 minutes a day in an effort to fight the rise of doomscrolling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The affluent city-state hopes its gamification strategy, which launched this month, will improve concentration, critical thinking and the imagination of Singaporeans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Under the scheme, readers accrue points that can be redeemed for a few cents. People will have to log 50 daily reading sessions on a government website to earn S$1 (80c). A session of 15 minutes or more is rewarded with 20 virtual coins, with 1,000 coins needed for a dollar payment. One reading session is allowed daily.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The national library board\u2019s chief, Melissa Tam, said sustainable reading habits were built through small and achievable steps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe live in a world of extraordinary abundance, of content, information and stimulation,\u201d she told the Straits Times. \u201cAt any moment, we can scroll through hundreds of headlines, watch a video or get a summary of almost anything.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The government is considering ways to make social media less harmful for young Singaporeans, including a daily time limit. Doomscrolling and addiction caused most harm to young people, a recent study found.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is not uncommon for the Singapore government to use financial incentives to try to influence the behaviour of its citizens. Previous health-focused initiatives have included supermarket vouchers for walking and prizes for hitting daily step targets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite government concerns about reading, Singapore\u2019s 15-year-old students recently topped the world rankings for reading in the 2025 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), beating China and Taiwan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Singapore is paying its citizens to pick up a book for at least 15 minutes a day in an effort to fight the rise of doomscrolling. The affluent city-state hopes its gamification strategy, which launched this month, will improve concentration, critical thinking and the imagination of Singaporeans. Under the scheme, readers accrue points that can …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":65282,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65281","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65281"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65283,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65281\/revisions\/65283"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65281"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uaebarq.ae\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}