In a world where reaching for a phone has become almost automatic, Singapore is asking people to replace just 15 minutes of scrolling with something increasingly neglected: reading a book.
The country’s National Library Board launched ReadSG this month, a multi-year national campaign aimed at making reading a lifelong habit. Its message is deliberately simple: read for at least 15 minutes a day. Participants can record their reading sessions and collect virtual rewards, turning an activity associated with patience and concentration into something that borrows some of the motivational techniques used by apps and games.
Fifteen minutes is hardly intimidating. It can fit into a commute, a lunch break or the time someone would otherwise spend scrolling through TikTok, Instagram or X. Singapore’s campaign even points out that 15 minutes can be roughly the length of three MRT stops or the time spent waiting for a bus.
That matters in an era of endless scrolling. Social media platforms offer an almost unlimited stream of short videos, headlines, notifications and recommendations. It is remarkably easy to intend to check your phone for five minutes and emerge half an hour later having consumed dozens of pieces of content without remembering much of them.
Reading demands something different. A book asks us to remain with one argument, story or idea rather than constantly searching for the next piece of stimulation. Research has long established the importance of vocabulary to reading comprehension, while studies have found associations between reading and vocabulary development, language skills and wider knowledge. Reading also requires readers to interpret information, make connections and follow complex ideas, abilities closely connected to deeper comprehension and critical analysis. These skills are particularly important for children.
There is evidence of declining reading performance in the United States. The 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress found that average reading scores for American fourth graders were five points lower than in 2019. Eighth-grade performance was also five points below 2019, with results among lower-performing eighth graders reaching their lowest levels since the assessment began in 1992. Those figures should not just be blamed on TikTok or smartphones. The pandemic, educational disruption, socioeconomic differences and numerous other factors affect literacy.
But the broader problem deserves attention, teachers cannot develop strong readers if children rarely read outside the classroom. Nor can we expect young people to develop rich vocabularies and sustained concentration if much of their free time consists of rapidly moving between short pieces of digital content.
Singapore’s approach is interesting because it does not demand that people abandon technology. Instead, it attempts to compete with it.
The programme uses gamification, allowing participants to earn virtual coins for completing reading sessions. Critics could reasonably question whether people should need rewards to pick up a book. Ideally, reading should eventually become enjoyable enough to provide its own motivation. But habits have to begin somewhere. If a digital reward persuades someone to read for 15 minutes instead of spending those minutes doomscrolling, it is difficult to see much harm in trying.
Singaporean education researchers have similarly described the short target as an accessible starting point while emphasising that the ultimate objective should be genuine curiosity and sustained reading.
There is also an important irony here: Singapore is hardly responding to educational collapse. Its students remain internationally strong readers. The campaign is instead attempting to protect a reading culture before digital distraction erodes it further. Other countries should pay attention.
Fifteen minutes will not transform someone's vocabulary, attention span or critical-thinking skills overnight. 15 minutes every day becomes more than 90 hours of reading in a year. In an age when technology companies compete relentlessly for every available minute of our attention, encouraging people to reclaim even a small part of that time for a book seems less like an old-fashioned idea and more like a surprisingly modern one.
Public policy does not always need to involve restrictions, sometimes a modest nudge towards a better habit can be worthwhile.
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