Thread by @blake_surerus

I am convinced that the reason the #cesletter is successful in getting people to leave the Church is not b/c of the arguments it makes, but instead because of something called "information overload".

Information overload is a real phenomenon where information is presented in such a way that it outpaces the ability of an individual to process and handle the information.

One study found a relationship between information overload and psychological ill being, including depressive symptoms, anxiety, and anger.
sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Jeremy Runnells acknowledges that he purposely chose to include a large list of concerns about the Church. This gives the reader a large amount of information to confront which would be near impossible to fully process in just one reading.

He also cleverly uses numbered points to give the illusion that the amount of information to contradict the Church is massive.

At the end of the letter, he also includes an additional list of sources of information for you to read. Seems helpful, right? Wrong. In reality, it is just making your psychological symptoms even worse.

When a person is confronted with this vast amount of negative information about the Church it is overwhelming for the mind and the person begins to experience those negative psychological symptoms. Depression, anxiety, anger.

Critics of the Church will claim these negative psychological feelings have surfaced solely because a person has experienced dissonance between what the person believes about the Church and what the Church really is. Don't believe that.

The study cited above also found that when a person experiences higher or more intense psychological ill being as a result of information overload, they will be less likely to continue their search for information.

So a person is left feeling depressed, anxious, and angry AND they are also less motivated to search for more information. This is a terrible situation especially for someone who is left with more questions after reading the CES letter.

This compounded problem explains why people who read the CES letter frequently feel the negative feelings they do and also have difficulty continuing their research. Under such circumstances, it is psychologically easier to just leave the Church and stop consuming any more info.

So, how do you confront information overload? The study found the most effective ways were setting up strict rules for filtering out some information and being aware of the amount of the total amount of information you consume.

If you choose to confront the challenges raised by the CES Letter, give yourself time to process the information. Don't feel like you need to consume all the criticisms at once. Study topic by topic and allow your mind to slowly and methodically process the information.

In the end, you may actually consume a much higher amount of content, but it will be done at a pace that allows your mind to adequately process. That is how you can fit in all of the faithful content without being overloaded.
#CESLetter