I get it: reading isn't for everyone, and it doesn't take dyslexia, motion sickness, visual difficulties, or any other physical issue to make it challenging and unpleasant.
I grew up with a father who was partially-blind before my birth, and who lost his sight totally during my early childhood. I make much of my income through visual arts. I also had a mother who taught me how to read when I was four. Every person in my family liked reading.
Of course books are not the only way to store and transmit information. Books are as flawed as every other human endeavor. Nor am I knocking visual media, podcasts, Sudoku, or any of the other pastimes you mentioned.
What worries me - especially about the people I specifically mentioned - is that they appear to have very few other challenging, thought-provoking interests in their lives. Some are older than me, some much younger. They use writing and reading as little as possible in their professional lives, and it shows in the times when they are called upon to write or comprehend some more-complicated texts. Because they never learned how to read critically, they're easy targets for some of the dumbest spam and urban legends around. (I know, because they keep forwarding stuff to me, and I keep directing them to Snopes.)
The school system failed these folks, as did their families. So did Cliff-Notes and PowerPoint. The mid-twenties daughter of one woman confided 'We never had books in the house when I was a kid, and we didn't go to libraries, so I kind of grew up hating all the reading I had to do in school. Once I moved out, I got my first library card and started reading e-books for fun.'
I worry that comments like Bieber's might justify and add to another generation's frustration with reading, and the idea that it's not necessary.
