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Like boxing, newspaper headlines used to be the sweet science, meant to entice, cudgel or compel the reader to at least read the first couple of graphs.

Not anymore, at least not on cyber platforms.

To get their few cents, internet editors only need you to click once to take you beyond the headline to the most mundane, inane copy for their profit.

So instead of saying "So and so famous person, known for his so and so, dies at 74, you'll get a headline like this: "A famous person died, find out who".

Let's take a look at a few headlines from today's offerings on some of the most-read browser pages on the web.

"Once popular mall restaurant on brink of extinction"

"Duchess Kate reveals new look during surprise appearance"

"You won't believe how many calories are in this popular Mickey D's meal"

"Announcer implies NFL team is 'worse' than Weinstein"

And my favorite:

"What to do if you can't hold your bladder"

I mean, you got to be kidding. These aren't headlines like in the old days. They are nothing more than clickbait, defined as a pejorative term for web content whose main goal is to get users to click on a link to go to a certain webpage.

Of course every time you click on one of these stories suddenly you have about five talking ads going at the same time, while flash ads blossom and bloom across your screen.

Then when you finally x-out of all the voice and flash ads and get to look at the story, 95 percent of the time you're underwhelmed and the other 5 percent you just feel stupid to have been duped into clicking.

I know what you're thinking. You think I clicked on all the above headlines, so I could explain to you how deceitful they were given the underwhelming and pitiful drivel they delivered.

You'd be wrong. Being in the biz for so long, I am able to decipher the copy behind the headline without even reading it. Yeah, it's taken decades of practice, but today I was immediately able to glean the story's content without clicking.

So in the exact order as listed above, here are the story takeaways from the above headlines.

"Orange Julius deeper in red after orange cheeseburger fail"

"Duchess Kate got inked"

"Believe it or not, grease can be quite fattening"

"The Jets suck"

And my favorite:

"Depends"