As the moon blocked the view of the sun in parts of Mexico, the United States and Canada on Monday, the celestial event managed another impressive feat: It knocked people offline.
According to Cloudflare, a cloud-computing service used by about 20 percent of the world’s websites, internet traffic dropped off the path of totality as viewers took a break from their phones and computers to see the real life show.
Areas with the best views saw the biggest drop in traffic compared to the previous week. In Vermont, Arkansas, Indiana, Maine, New Hampshire and Ohio — states that are in the path of totality, meaning the moon completely blocks the sun — internet traffic drops 40 percent to 60 percent during the eclipse, Cloudflare said.
States with partial views also saw a decrease in internet activity, but to a lesser extent. At 3:25 pm Eastern time, internet traffic in New York was down 29 percent compared to the previous week, Cloudflare found.
The path of totality consists of a roughly 110-mile-wide belt that stretches from Mazatlán, Mexico, to Montreal. In the Mexican state of Durango, which is in the eclipse zone, internet traffic as measured by Cloudflare dropped 57 percent compared to the previous week, while farther south, in Mexico City, traffic dropped 22 percent. The duration of the eclipse’s totality varies by location, with some places experiencing it for more than four minutes while for others, it is only one to two minutes.
The total solar eclipse ended on the east coast of Canada. At 4:35 pm local time, traffic in the province of Prince Edward Island was down 48 percent.
