Do hackers eat turkey? And other Thanksgiving Internet trends

Thanksgiving in the US resulted in a 10% daily decrease in internet traffic compared to the previous week, consistent with the trend observed in 2022. The peak drop occurred around 21:00 UTC (16:00 EST and 13:00 PST), representing a 22% decrease from the same hour of the previous week. Internet traffic began to pick up again during early Black Friday morning in the US, showing an increase of as much as 18% compared to the previous week. The "Thanksgiving time" varied across states, with central US states experiencing the largest drop in traffic around 13:00 local time and coastal US states having a later Thanksgiving, around 17:00 local time. Mobile devices accounted for 54.5% of internet traffic on Thanksgiving Day, an increase from previous years. DNS traffic to food delivery sites was higher than the previous week on Tuesday and Wednesday but dropped significantly on Thanksgiving Day itself.