Challenges facing literature; paths to resolution?

I found myself thinking, actually getting quite upset about it, but nonetheless thinking about what writing means today.
Looking at other genres, you have abstract structural art, e.g. a giant fork welded to the side of a bulldozer, or seventeen video monitors mounted on top of each other, all showing different segments of the same elderly man’s talking head reciting the alphabet backwards.
In music you have perhaps the greatest breadth of options known to mankind. Right now, I could go online, and, within fifteen minutes, find stations broadcasting the latest sounds out of Ramadi, Ninsei, Mumbai, Novosibirsk. I can listen in to the local sounds of any part of the globe, or find modern music ranging from silent symphonies to seventeen loudspeakers all playing different segments of the same Harley motorcycle starting up.
Looking to writing, though, what do we find? We find the same medium, paper and ink, that has been around since the dawn of mankind, perused by millions of people a day. Of course, music has been around far longer, but enjoys the advantage of mobility.
The reader must sit his or her ass down, in one spot, with the intention of reading just one book, one page at a time, to myself, ignoring everyone and everything around me. Running on the boardwalk by the beach today, however, I heard a dozen different snippets of pieces of music, and saw cars, houses, bodies and clothing that bore visual art. Where would I rather be, as a young man in Southern California? Out in the sun, checking out sculpted female bodies, iShuffle blasting, looking for new tatoo ideas, or inside, in a comfy chair, jogging the mind, expanding the imagination?
Both options have their merits, both fulfil certain needs, desires. But with eternal sunshine, endless TV programs and internet pr0n, who has time for books, let alone novels? I work hard myself to make the time to read and write, but find it far easier to boot up the PS2 and drop in Mean Girls, naked, in the dark.
So, what is the solution? I beg to offer none. Just as there is no silver bullet for terrorism (RIP London 7/72005) or environmental destruction (too many to mention, open your blinds), this is a complex issue. For one, it’s really not cool to read, at least not when you’re, say, walking, or riding your bike, or at a party.
Would you be reading, at the party? Not there. I would be working the room, dropping body language hints to the foreign chick smoking non-filters in the corner, guzzling Black Russians, grab-assing and being generally inappropriate.
Well, if not at the party, would you be reading at home? My GBA is burning a hole in my skull right now, from twenty feet away, Sacred Stones begging to be saved. I discipline myself as best as possible, to read, and not just in the fifteen minutes before going to bed.

One possible solution is to shorten the material into its basic components without losing the basic, underlying meaning or substance of the piece. Is this possible? I mean to try. I read not too long ago that the majority of people who read novels are over 50. Would the under 35 demographic take the time to read five pages of kick-ass text, boiled down from the classics, or compiled from today’s newest and finest? Perhaps such shrinkage would alienate the older foundation of readers. Perhaps, it would not even register, and they could go on leafing through leather bound tomes.
Another solution would be to offer cheap downloads of text read by man or computer to portable devices, with voice on-off activation, so that the under 35s can listen while driving, walking, fucking, and not face the nuisance of having to take the CD with them, or carry an additional playback device.
Personally, I like listening to books read on long trips. Maybe ... weave pop music in with the story, have it in the background, but I doubt if radio stations would play it. Maybe NPR, before the Republicans cut funding. Pop music would time-stamp the piece, forcing periodic rework, or encouraging the creation of all new stories to all new music. I will have to look for similar discussion groups, or blogs. Any ideas? MG.