Making it mandatory might be counterproductive, but encouraging it from an early age is probably wise.

My current thinking is that screen time should be kept to a minimum in the early years. The health department in my country recommends that kids don't get a smartphone until 13 years old, which might just be sensible.

Mandatory? Nah, that won't work. Just do what my parents did: "you can stay up as late as you want if you are reading."

I still love a good book over 20 years later

If my own childhood is anything to judge by, I'm not sure requiring something of a child is a great way to instill a love of that thing.

Brace yourself. It's a pain in the ass!

We have limited screen time for our kids on weekdays. Probably not as limited as it should be, but enough to cause constant grief. Holy shit the arguments and raging it's caused! We've been called nazis, prison guards, micromanagers, helicopter parents, you name it. So for our limited screen policy and implementation of it. I've had to get a bit of drywall repaired because one of them got so worked up he kicked the wall and broke it.

I hope some day they appreciate we were only doing it for their own benefit. But who the fuck knows.

Something interesting happened where I worked a little while ago. We had a phone in the lost and found that stayed there for, I kid you not, a whole month. The whole time I was like, how did somebody not realize they lost their phone right away?

Turns out it belonged to a kid whose parents limited their screen time on that particular device anyway, and they hadn't realized it was missing for a whole month.

It’s tough, but doable.

We make sure to visit our public library every couple of weeks to keep at least 8-10 books in the house or a little plastic bin in the car. Eventually the kids get curious, flip through the pages, and then over time start reading on their own.

You can do it (when the time comes)!

My parents did not allow a TV in our home until I was 8 or maybe 9. And even then I was only allowed very short viewing times during the week days and week-ends. I had books and comics, toys, board games and actual friends to play with, at home or, brace yourself, outside and without any adult supervision.

Sure that happened many decades ago, in the previous century. But it did not kill me, far from it.

edit: The key thing is that my parents too had other activities than watching a screen. Things I watched them doing and that I naturally tried to imitate.