Yeah, it rubs me the wrong way, and I'll admit it might be because I value (perhaps overvalue) reading.

Part of what bothers me is that he lumps together all "reading" (in his defense, often defenders of reading do the same). If you're reading and not thinking, not asking questions, hell even just not vividly visualizing fiction, then yeah, "reading" won't be much better than TV.

And yeah, you can read too much; you can do too much of anything, which is why I feel strongly that the vast majority of people spend too much time consuming media in the form of TV/streaming and Internet, and not enough time reading well researched books/papers and thinking about them.

The "reading" I (and I suspect others) would recommend is:

    1. Find really good material.
    2. Read it deliberately, with an active mind.
    3. Act on that material, let it change your life.