Since I've come to #Mastodon my habit is to usually not click on shortened links. I can't read the title of the article or page in a shortened link. If it's posted with a good description of what the article or page is about then I can decide if I want to click. But if there's no information provided in the post, and just a shortened link, there's just no reason for me to click on it.
@Nonya_Bidniss In complete agreement. I also found it strange when I first started using Mastodon that links would be posted without any explanation.
@Nonya_Bidniss More than irritation, it may be a case of clicking on a link that leads to a malicious site. If there is no way to tell what the link is pointing to, I avoid clicking.