When mindlessly browsing Reddit, I found that I usually just jump directly to the comments, read a couple, and continue. Lemmy seems a bit more curated (read: smaller), and therefore it’s easier to actually engage in discussions, which leads me to read the article, think critically about it, and respond (if I have something to say) in the comments–bigger is not always better!
Overall discussion quality is higher, of course people are going to want to read the article directly to talk about it.
(I just block World News Reddit Repost Bots and that seems to improve the experience massively)