Singapore’s National Library Board offers micropayments to build reading habits
gadgetreview.com145 points by geox 6 hours ago
145 points by geox 6 hours ago
I read a lot, and I own a lot of physical books, but I almost never actually read physical books anymore. I'm one of the happy few that used my Kindle for more than a week after getting it as a gift.
I find that reading on an ereader is many times easier for me, primarily because I can make the text gigantic and I don't lose track of my place on the page nearly as often. I'm not dyslexic (I've been tested), but I do think that there's some issue with my brain where if the text is small I really can't follow it. On all my computers the text is gigantic and even then I will click and highlight text as I'm reading so don't lose place. I would love to be paid to read but I don't think I'd love to be paid to read physical books.
I remember my grandmother was wholly unconvinced that my Kindle was a different thing than an iPad or a Game Boy, and that it was not "real" reading, for whatever reason.
One thing I do with my students is show them how to adjust text size and have them try out larger sizes. I think a surprisingly large number of people have never even attempted to change the text size on their devices and many can benefit from something different than the defaults.
I sort of discovered this accidentally twice.
First was when I go the Kindle I realized I could make the text as big as I wanted so I would do that, as stated before.
Another time is when I wanted an external monitor and I bought a big TV because it was much cheaper. Because the TV was bigger the text was also bigger, and I realized how much easier it was for me to work.
I think I used to feel like there was a "coolness" factor to keeping the text small. I don't know why I thought that, but I think what's much cooler than having lots of small text is actually being able to read and understand the text on the screen.
Now I have no desire to impress anyone, and I keep my text in the browser at like 200%.
Even on computer monitors, I always bump the scaling to 125% on modern high resolution screens.
150% gang here. Actually 200% on my laptop but the resolution of that display is just ridiculous.
I tell everyone to set it to what you find comfortable and then adjust it up a notch.
I don't have a Kindle, but I've been reading books exclusively on my phone since I had a 3gs IIRC. I've increased the text size over the years and love having the 2-3 books I'm typically reading at once readily available.
I swap between kindle and audible daily. The syncing is generally good, byt i have had issues with some books.
This alone has caused my reading to skyrocket. I swear i do 1-2 books a week this way
What’s annoying is when you want to look back at something earlier in the book. Then you have to use the clunky search and hope you don’t lose your current place.
KOReader has bookmark support; if I need to go back a few pages (or use the search), I'll just set a bookmark for my current place so I can easily jump back.
Right so now we need a workflow to do something as simple as looking back a few pages. I know it’s necessary but it’s definitely a regression.
The constraint here is the e-ink refresh rate. That constraint does not exist on regular screens, which is why I'm surprised neither mobile reader apps or even desktop software takes purposeful advantage of it: fast scrolling back with fine, per-page control, keeping page in-place and zero perceptible latency rendering full page. With a finger drag or click&drag movement, this can easily be even faster than with paper books.
I know this works because I've seen it with some PDF readers on desktop in the past, when I lucked into a combination of lightweight document and right "fit page to display" scaling. And, of course, this works natively in browsers with PgUp/PgDown, but only on the few remaining websites that haven't been thoroughly shittified (no "en-" there on purpose) with JavaScript and excessive styling.
When you go back in a physical book, you also put a bookmark (either an actual bookmark or one of your finger) to be able to resume reading where you were, no?
An you bought one for her.
Ha, no, I actually don't talk to that grandmother anymore and probably never will again since she's extremely racist and doesn't like my (Hispanic) wife. I wouldn't buy her gifts at the best of times.
The headline makes it seem more monetary than it actually is.
https://www.read.gov.sg/join-the-readsg-challenge
It seems like turning points into money is just a happens to exist sort of mechanic. Enough to write a headline that they are technically "paying you". The real mechanics are much more typical gamification. Like earning xp, streaks, leaderboards, limited edition goodies at events, prize draws, collective goals.
The strict money payout is S$0.02 per 15 minutes at most once a day. Obviously if you were doing this it would be more for the rest of the dopamine then hoping to buy a candy bar after like 50 days.
Systems like this are not new. When I was in elementary school in the US Midwest, we had a program called accelerated reader, (AR), where you could take tests about books and get points. The longer the book, the more the points. You could redeem the points for candy.
Anyway I was banned from AR in the 5th grade because I learned you could sort the book list by points awarded, so I wrote down the list of most valuable books and checked them out from the library. I convinced a 2 friends to help, one would take the test and write down the questions and then someone else would read the book to get the answers and share them. We ended up racking up like way more points than anyone else and the teachers called out and made us explain.
I remember around 5th grade getting in trouble for finding the software to create/edit the AR tests
You basically discovered the exploit in gamified reading before gamification had a name. I wonder how many kids today would optimize the points system instead of actually reading the books.
yea a free candy bar for kids every 50 days for just reading sounds great
> to build daily reading habits among a phone-first population
Reading is fundamental.
EDIT: Other skills and habits that you can then build on reading: critical thinking, reasoning, detection and handling own biases, numeracy, financial literacy, and more. All these dimensions are manipulated via phones and the apps on them, so you need a firewall.
Also: writing. Cursive writing.
> Cursive writing.
Is there anything useful about cursive writing? Other than it being positively correlated with many good things because education is the common topic?
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-athletes-way/202...
note that at least "Handwriting but not typewriting leads to widespread brain connectivity: a high-density EEG study with implications for the classroom" is critized - https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10....
You being downvoted is just sad
Stating a truth is not adding to the conversation though. A little sad, sure, but grandparent's comment is barely even a building block to kick off a wider conversation, let alone thoughtful or additive on its own.
Maybe it doesn't deserve to be on the bottom, dead, but something this basic certainly doesn't deserve to be showered in upvotes
While books > articles > audiobooks > podcasts > listening to music > TV > short-form content, it's all content consumption in the end, and while that's fine, I think it's a little overhyped.
I prefer to draw the distinction at creating vs doing vs consuming, and focus on balancing the time spent consuming (which is a natural part of enjoying life, but usually people consume way too much) unless it's in the service of one of the other two categories (e.g. consuming articles to learn/inspire the creation of something better or plan a trip to do something, etc.)
No, it is not all just ‘content’ which is roughly the same and can be consumed like a snack. That’s a word used by people who think thoughts, feelings and stories are just carriers for advertising and selling you things.
Words matter, don’t take your word choice from ad factories instagram which popularised this term.
Reading (I won’t say consuming) a good book can stay with you forever. People from 2000 years ago can speak to you in their own voice from behind the grave. And you have the audacity to call it content and compare it to cat videos and call it ‘overhyped’?
Reading a book from 2000 years ago is not the same class as reading a recently published modern romance fiction. The latter is basically consumed like a snack.
On days when I am too lazy to be productive or be “creating” something, I sometimes take out my old Harry Potter collection and read for two straight hours. I don’t really feel that’s meaningfully different from watching online videos for two straight hours. It is indeed just consumption. And Harry Potter series is in fact one of the better ones among contemporary literature.
Although I can't personally imagine re-reading YA lit, it still requires you to use huge amounts of grammar, vocabulary, and cultural knowledge in a seamless automatic way. To imagine an alternate world, people, and culture, while your eyes scan constantly across page after page invisible to your captured mind.
Those are the same language tools you need to use to create and evaluate your own writing. You're using a mental tool at a high level, even if it's not Ulysses (or Homer's Odyssey). This is fundamentally different from passively viewing cat videos, or thirst traps, which may well not involve language at all.
A 2 year old can be entertained by short form video, but can not even sound out a single word of a book.
I didn't say it was all roughly the same or that you shouldn't do it, but it's obviously still consumption. If nobody ever consumed, there would be less value in creating art. Like all things in life, it should be done in moderation and balanced with creative activities.
Singapore libraries are really annoying for foreigners because they don’t let you use the WiFi.
Thailand at least gives you a 1 hour pass.
Not that anyone asked but my ranking of public libraries in Asia
1/ Taiwan
2/ HK
3/ Thailand
4/ Laos (private libraries are cute, but hot…)
4/ Vietnam (Bring your passport!)
5/ Singapore
I haven’t been to a library in Japan or S Korea. I tried working from a community center in Japan but I couldn’t figure how it works.
It's not limited to their libraries. All of their public facilities are like this. Even their public swimming pools (not allowed to use them if you are a visitor, their digital ticketing system requires the local equivalent of a SSN). The official excuse is that it's tax payer subsidized.
It's very much a classist country where you position in society is determined by your immigration status. Everything there is tiered based on whether you are a "citizen" (first class), permanent resident (second class), and you are in a permanent out group if you are not in the above two classes. And if you are a foreigner, whether you are a white "expat" or a Dubai -style indenture servant migrant worker. Valley tech bros are obsessed with that country but all that glitters is not gold.
> It's very much a classist country where you position in society is determined by your immigration status
If you were running one of the most land- and resource-scarce countries in the world, you'd be this 'classist' too. For the record, most visa types get a SingPass; if one doesn't, then said visa is explicitly for short-term visit, and I believe the hoops to jump through for such fleeting visitors are acceptable, whilst making it extraordinarily easy for citizens and permanent residents to get stuff done. The Singapore civil service is completely out of everyone else's league. Most countries (especially those with an economic migrant problem—see Western Europe) could stand to learn from it, in my view.
It famously doesn't allow refugees in either. There are countries with wider tracts of land (ahem, up north and down south) that can take them in. Singapore does its fair share by providing emergency services, disaster relief, and financial reprieve to areas of conflict and disaster, from Palestine, Sudan, and Ukraine, to Myanmar.
> Even their public swimming pools (not allowed to use them if you are a visitor, their digital ticketing system requires the local equivalent of a SSN). The official excuse is that it's tax payer subsidized.
There's a FAQ specifically addressing this [1]:
> If you do not have Singpass, you may still approach our pool or gym staff to buy single-entry passes.
[1] https://ask.gov.sg/activesg/questions/clztixkjr00agracq0ys53...
This is also pretty funny considering how much of Singapore's business is related to sheltering the wealth of the rich from other nations.
I feel fortunate that today's distractions didn't exist when I was younger (or I probably wouldn't read many books).
Nowadays I "turn off" all the distractions that I can before bed to get a few pages in. Reading during the day is still pretty challenging if the book has dull bits (I recently finished the 3 body problem series. At it's peak, its some of the best sci-fi I've ever read. But some parts of the books were such a slog to get through. During those sections I often found myself reaching for my phone, just out of habit)
For me it's not the phone that's stopping me from reading books but my computer, on which I play games, and browse, and do private stuff.
Where I live, electricity price is so ridiculous, I leave my PC off for 3 to 5 hours a day.
You get bored after 5 minutes. This is the best time to open your book and read.
----
Same idea applies for the phone. Just leave it off.
It's difficult to turn your phone off if you have a spouse or children or other dependents who you can't drop communication with for hours at a time. But it's helpful to strip it down to the essentials so it doesn't double as an entertainment device.
It is in actual fact not difficult to "drop communication with for hours at a time". This was the human norm for millenia, up to a decade or so ago. And given the toxic side effects of all this communication it's probably going to have to be worked out again.
We raised a child with the principle that "No News is Good News". She turned out great! And she lives that way still. That constant level of screen stimulation is strictly not necessary for family happiness, and I think you all who think so have not really internalized what it means for a child to learn responsibility.
See also free-range kids, and the social insanity that causes kids/parents to get arrested for eg playing in a park alone. There's a bunch of mental illness out there, and the screens are big reason why.
Oh right. My beautiful daughter reads books constantly. Weird that, huh.
To be sure, you absolutely can do this. I did it all the time as a kid. Nothing bad happened from being out of constant communication for hours.
You are focusing on things that never happened or never will happen.
Phone is not the only communication you need for your kids or spouse.
The need to be instantly reachable at a moment's notice is a modern anxiety that we successfully lived without until the mass penetration of cell phones 20 years ago. Your spouse and children will manage without being able to text you for a few hours, just like spouses and children did for the first 100,000 years of humans history.
That's ridiculous. We have managed without electricity or antibiotics for 100,000 years too. Are you keen on reading by candlelight or dying of preventable infections?
Instant messaging and calling is extremely valuable. Algorithmic social media is extremely noxious. Unfortunately, they both live on the same device.
A more apt comparison is would you be OK reading by candle light sometimes for a few hours? I would be, it’s perfectly fine to read for a few hours by a bright candle.
Comparing smartphones to antibiotics is somewhat ironic given that smartphone addiction is a disease, not a cure to one. There is no law of the universe that says that technology cannot create ills where previously there were none. I assure you that you are allowed to turn your phone off for hours, days, weeks, forever if you so choose, and your life may be better for it.
That’s fine, but the argument needs to be something better than “humanity did without it and survived as a species.”
duolingo seems to have figured out how to get people to drop what they're doing to perform a task
is there like a duolingo for books
like a bookmark that annoys you if you havent moved it in too long
It’s worth S$0.02 for 15-min read.
They're going to have to try a lot harder than $1 for 50 days worth of reading, in a world where any time taken off from work is a risk.
> They're going to have to try a lot harder than $1 for 50 days worth of reading, in a world where any time taken off from work is a risk.
If the "get paid to walk" programmes [1][2] were an inspiration for this, it's mostly retirees and students that will do and try to game this [3].
[1] https://www.healthhub.sg/programmes/healthyliving
[2] (RIP) https://www.hpb.gov.sg/healthy-living/our-lumihealth-journey...
[3] https://sgunfitrunners.blogspot.com/2016/04/5-despicable-way...
What’s the risk? Not familiar enough with Singapore to judge that.
Not Singapore specifically but in today's AI/tech world if you're not constantly working you're on the firing line.
I'm in the Bay Area. It's Sunday morning and I'm working becasue I still need to pay for food, rent, and enormous medical bills and don't want to get fired, and I got yelled at by my director this morning on Slack because I'm not delivering fast enough despite squashing 12 months' worth of work into 4.
I don't have time for books. Finding time for even exercise is hard.
This sounds like mostly a USA problem and not something that extrapolates well to other countries. I had a suspicion it’d come from a US point of view lol.
EDIT: while more common in the US, if you are actually regularly working weekends, look for a better job. In my part of FAANG I rarely have to work weekends, although the occasional crunch time can happen.
I've worked in Singapore before. It's not a chill work culture there either. In fact it's about the same.
When I was a kid, my local small-town library used to have a "reading competition" each summer. They would set up about 10 small interactive dioramas each with a different theme -- a ski hill, a dragon's cave, etc. You'd get a little paper cut-out figure that represented you on your journey through the competition.
At each stage, you'd do some activity on the diorama to determine what sort of book you had to read next -- i.e. a little spinner, or a launcher that would launch your paper dude into a bunch of cups each with a different topic written on the side. You then had to find a book at the library on the topic, and the librarian would gauge whether it was appropriately "difficult" for your reading level, or whether you were trying to read something easy just to progress faster.
Each time you finished a book, they'd ask you a few questions to ensure you read it, and then you could progress to the next diorama. If you completed the circuit, you got a star on the board and could restart from the beginning. Some kids would do 10 or more circuits in a single summer.
I had a blast with it. I lived pretty far away so couldn't participate as much as I would have liked, but kids in walking distance would sometimes read a book every day or two just to keep going. All those librarians are gone and the library has moved on to a different location, and I never did find out who was responsible for building all those dioramas every summer.
Such a classic societal fail most people can't seem to recognize. The point isn't to read, it's to read because you want to, not because of a stick/carrot.
RMS makes the same mistake in thinking that disallowing proprietary software in repos is better than giving the tools to avoid it and education about what is compromised in the process.
A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believes things only because his pastor says so, or the assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy
― John Milton, AreopagiticaYes, but without Pizza Hut involved, do they even stand a chance?
They should be paying them to meditate. That would be the more healthful and revolutionary course.
Regular daily intellectual concentration is much the same be it game, book or reddit. And it makes you crazy. You withdraw from reality.