You have likely seen the videos circulating online of the total solar eclipse that took place last night in the United States and Mexico. The eclipse was fully viewable in Mexico and parts of the United States and Canada. For a few rare minutes, millions of people in these locations stopped scrolling through TikTok and looked up to the sky. Some of them without the correct viewing equipment which has resulted in a spike in Google searches for “eyes hurt“. According to Cloudflare, internet usage dropped by 8% during the eclipse as a result of this disconnection.
The cloud routing company says that in the United States, bytes delivered during the eclipse dropped by 8% and requests dropped by 12% compared to the week before. The company even released an image to show the rare occurrence which took place around 18:00 and 19:00 UCT.
Another image shared by Cloudflare shows the drop in internet usage per state as the eclipse rolled through the United States. Vermont, Arkansas, Indiana, Maine, New Hampshire and Ohio saw traffic drop by at least 40%. These states were the ones in total view of the total eclipse. Vermont was the best state to be in during the eclipse. Traffic dropped by 60%.
The stats show that if users weren’t watching the eclipse live, they were watching it on some live stream or on TV. This total eclipse was a big deal for the world. It is the last total eclipse to take place in the United States until 23 August 2044.
Source: Cloudflare Blog
