This country is literally paying people to read, one page at a time, to fight the brain rot epidemic

Whether it's a few pages on the train commute or a quiet chapter at a café table, Singapore wants its citizens to rediscover an increasingly rare habit: sitting down and reading. This month, the city-state launched a novel five-year national campaign to nurture reading, complete with an incentive rarely seen in public policy, small cash payments to citizens who log their reading minutes on a government platform, CNN reported.

The bet, officials say, is that gamifying reading — tracking it with a points system for a modest reward and a dash of public participation can help revive a habit steadily being edged out by doomscrolling and what's now widely known as "brain rot." The term, describing the perceived mental fog from overconsuming shallow online content, was coined by Henry David Thoreau in his 1854 book Walden, but shot into modern vocabulary after Oxford University Press named it its 2024 Word of the Year, citing a 230% surge in usage that year.

"While short-form content helps us stay informed, long-form reading strengthens attention, critical thinking and imagination," National Library Board (NLB) chief executive Melissa Tam said in a statement, as per CNN. "Ultimately, we want to see a nation of readers who are curious, thoughtful, discerning and equipped to navigate an increasingly complex world."


Don't expect to get rich

The scheme, run through a platform called CrowdTask SG, is not exactly a windfall. Readers need 50 days of logged sessions to earn a single Singapore dollar (about $0.80). Each 15-minute-or-longer session earns 20 virtual coins, and 1,000 coins are needed to cash out that one dollar, with only one session countable per day, CNN reported. The programme is currently in a pilot phase running through the end of the year, with the NLB saying further features will be added based on public feedback, and includes a linked charity drive for those who'd rather donate their earnings than pocket them.

Why now?

The timing isn't coincidental. Reading habits are declining globally even as attention spans shrink, and educators worldwide are grappling with the fallout of "brain rot" and doomscrolling on young readers. Global rankings released just last week showed reading scores among 15-year-olds in the United States sliding, even as Asian nations including Singapore and China continued to perform strongly, a divergence researchers have partly linked to rising digital distraction in classrooms, CNN reported.

Loh Chin Ee, a reading-habits researcher at Singapore's National Institute of Education, said the genius of the scheme lies in turning reading into a repeatable habit rather than a one-off event. "For somebody who reads a lot, 15 minutes might feel very short, but I think it is a nice, sweet spot," Loh told CNN, adding that while many people still read words on a screen daily, sustained, deep reading has become far rarer.

Does cash actually build a reading habit?

The scheme has stirred debate in the affluent city-state over whether money can genuinely cultivate a love of books, or whether it merely rewards a transaction. Charissa Ng, principal clinical psychologist at Putra Star Care, told CNN that monetary incentives tend to work best on people already somewhat interested in reading. "For those with no existing interest at all, cash incentives may be a hard sell for cultivating a lasting, intrinsic motivation to read," she said, echoing a broader body of research suggesting rewards can sometimes undercut natural motivation once the reward disappears.

Losing the habit at exam time

Even in Singapore, a global standout in reading scores, there are concerns that students lose their reading mojo once high-stakes exams enter the picture. Isaac Neo, a 32-year-old risk analyst who reads extensively for work, told CNN that many teenagers stop reading for pleasure once school pressure sets in. "There are a lot of big examinations and you start to read only for what you're being tested on. And then, slowly you lose the habit of reading for leisure," he said.

It was a realisation Neo had about his own life, he hadn't picked up a book for years after starting his career, that pushed him to co-found the Modern Men's Book Club in 2025, in an effort to bring the habit back for himself and others like him.