The objective burden of reading, today

Which is better, Pittsburgh or Singapore? In the American city, students at the local university were paid five dollars for every night they slept for more than seven hours, an activity that was verified via a wristband designed to monitor the heart rate of around a thousand individuals selected for this experiment: the aim was, in fact, to demonstrate how a small financial incentive would encourage them to sleep longer, whilst also bringing a certain benefit to their studies, thanks to the resulting increase in concentration. Meanwhile, the Singaporean government has arranged to pay a rather modest sum – the equivalent of eighty cents – to citizens who devote a quarter of an hour to reading. Assuming that the hours I spend reading could be financially rewarding, I briefly considered relocating to South-East Asia: devoting every afternoon to reading—albeit with a substantial coffee break—would, in fact, have earned me a whopping four hundred and eighty dollars a month.

Much to my dismay, however, I soon discovered that, in order to take part in this reckless economic scheme, one must apply via the Singaporean government’s website; whilst this does indeed secure the promised payment, it is only for the first quarter of an hour of reading: as if to say that, from the sixteenth minute to the twenty-fourth hour, continuing to read is not worth it. Meanwhile, news has arrived from Pennsylvania that the incentive offered by the American university has led students to sleep, on average, about fifteen minutes longer than before; given that they were already sleeping for free for nearly seven hours, this means that the payments they received covered only the additional time – albeit a meagre amount. Looking east, one finds that a day spent studying earns eighty cents; looking west, one discovers that a quarter of an hour’s sleep earns five dollars. Such is the objective value of reading in today’s world. Perhaps relocating to Pittsburgh would be advisable; perhaps spending afternoons napping would be preferable.