Not everyone wants to sit and read or do calculations, but it's still important to have a basic grasp of literacy and numbers.

Currently, there is not a basic grasp of digital literacy. I don't think everyone should know, off the top of their head, how to compile a script. But if people understood the idea of patterns in text and repeatable tasks (i.e. for loops), that could be very helpful, especially to professional developers who can make use of structured, well planned information.

But most of the people do anyway. Majority of office jobs involve sitting in front of the screen through the whole day. Having some basic programming skills and general knowledge of "what is happening under the hood" would make many people's work much easier but we can't expect them to suddenly become developers just because it's cool and useful. However, most of them don't even realize how useful knowing at least one scripting programming language can be. What sit in front of the screen through the whole day if with little effort you can automate some areas of your work.

Well, you have to consider that this is due to their exposure to computers in the past. Common users often see computers as this buggy device that sometimes feeds them their emails or allows them to catch up with friends on facebook. Others familiarize it with a tool that makes people antisocial or destroys interpersonal communication because of all of the possible distractions. And even then others think that computers can only do what they make them do on the job and they hate their job.

I'd imagine that if they stopped looking at their computing device in those eyes and were able to truly express their creativity, their viewpoint would change. Programming is not about "[sitting] in front of a screen all day." That's a misunderstanding. Programming is about taking control of your computer for fun, fame, and fortune. It just so happens that our only way of doing that is by sitting down in front of the damn thing, currently.