If you could get a monetary reward for reading books, how much do you think would be appropriate? In Singapore, an initiative was launched to reward people for reading books as part of a campaign to promote reading habits. The idea behind it was that reading habits among the population had declined with the rise of short videos. So, if people read for more than 15 minutes a day, they earn a point, and once they collect enough points, they can exchange them for a monetary reward.
I think this initiative is probably controversial, but before we get into it, how much do you think the reward actually is? After reading for 50 days, they can get just one Singapore dollar — about 120 yen. That's too low. If I were a Singaporean, I wonder how much it would take to encourage me to read more. Putting aside where the money comes from, I’d say between 500 and 1,000 yen for every five books. That's because it is enough to buy another book on Kindle. It creates a positive cycle, where reading a book leads to buying the next.
That said, I don't think this initiative makes sense in the first place. The true reward for reading is not money, but the knowledge and the fulfillment we gain.
