The author is explicitly advocating for a longer, more meaningful experiences. He’s arguing that the way most people consume books leave them with a cursory understanding and a few hours of entertainment.

What is particularly Western about this? And compared to what? Do you just mean modern culture?

Modern culture might be a more apt term—but an alternate viewpoint would be, people living in huts in rural Africa probably don't have this problem.

Then again, of course, I'm sure that applies to plenty of people in the western hemisphere as well.

So, I think it could be argued that the term "western culture" is a misnomer in general, and maybe even a problematic one—but I don't think GP was out of line with common usage.

It may be more than a Western phenomena, I don't know. My experience is with Western culture though.

I wasn't trying to implicitly compare Western culture to some idealized other culture, I was trying to limit the scope of my critique based on my limited knowledge of the world.

Embracing mediocrity and anti-intellectualism. It boils down to "X is too hard. Give me something less challenging."