It appears Twitter also can’t help but hold its breath during the nerve wrecking penalty shootouts of the World Cup.

As well as the silence that falls upon fans, pubs and homes around the world, new research has shown that Twitter experiences a dramatic dip in activity as players step up to their mark and take a shot on goal.

Twitter usually measures the moments when audiences interact most on social media using a ‘tweets per minute ‘analytic.

However, during the round 16 clash between Chile and Brazil, analysts broke down their numbers even more to ‘tweets per second’ and found that when the referee blew his whistle to start the first kick, that is when activity begins to drop dramatically.

Twitter, 2014

For the brief moment a player takes to line up his shot, Twitter experiences some activity as users will debate tactics or which way he will shoot.

However, in the few seconds before the kick, Twitter falls into a nearly dead silence.

During the first shot, from Brazil’s David Luiz, the number of tweets dropped significantly as fans watched in anticipation.

Similarly as the crowd watching jeers or cheers to celebrate or commiserate after a successful penalty kick, Twitter too explodes and experiences a mass surge in tweets.

The last penalty kick which sent Brazil through to the World Cup semi-finals saw a massive 388,985 tweets per minute, the highest activity Twitter has seen throughout the entire World Cup.