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.