I’ve run across a number of clickbait articles on facebook that are ridiculously long. A story that could have been well told in three medium-short paragraphs is drawn out to 30 (I guess, didn’t have the patience to follow to the end) really long ones. There is repetition, statement of the excruciatingly obvious, irrelevant fluff, etc. Is there any purpose to this other than getting readers to scroll past more ads?
It’s for the same reason as everything on Facebook. To trap you as long as possible for ad impressions and data collection.
With media today, that is pretty much the sole purpose (and arguably always was anyway).
No.
I’m not sure about Facebook but Google tracks how long you stay on a site you clicked through from google as a measure of how relevant the link was too you. You can increase your page rank by having people stay on your page longer. It wouldn’t surprise me if Facebook used something similar to gauge your interest.
There’s a subreddit for these types of stupid clickbait articles.