Technology is Making us a Nation on the Edge

LONDON, March 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ --

Half of all Brits have sent an inappropriate message to the wrong person

Falling over, farting on the train, leaving your flies undone...we've all done it. We've also all experienced the embarrassing aftermath that follows, from waiting to see if anyone noticed you on the floor to quickly exiting a room before you're pinpointed as the perpetrator of that awful smell!

To celebrate the return of The Edge® pizza, Pizza Hut Restaurants have revealed what tricky situations put Brits on the edge and how we react to them. While traditionally people dreaded burping in public or walking into doors, the new research revealed the average Brit is actually more likely to be put on edge by mishaps with technology than those traditional cringe-worthy moments.

According to the results almost half (46%) of all Brits have text or emailed an inappropriate message to the wrong person and over a third (37%) have sent a revealing or embarrassing image to the wrong person. So from sending your boss a drunken email or texting your grandma an explicit photo, it seems like most of us have experienced the horrors of technology gone wrong.

The research also revealed the great lengths Brits go to in order to avoid the shame of these humiliating experiences, which include:

• Ignoring important calls, emails and texts (56%)
• Cancelling a social engagement (35%)
• Pulling a sicky from work (21%)

A spokesman for Pizza Hut Restaurants said: "We've all had excruciatingly embarrassing moments. We mistake an overweight woman for a mother-to-be or walk around with our flies undone and it takes half a day to figure out why everybody's giving us funny looks! For most of us, these mortifying moments pass quickly. But when they occur in the world of technology, they spread through the Internet like wildfire and hang around you like a bad smell."

It's no wonder Pizza Hut Restaurants' research found that once we've been put on edge, our gut reaction is to go into hiding. Not only will colleagues have seen our embarrassing dance moves at the work party but also within a few hours, so has half the world!

Pizza Hut Restaurants have taken the edge off their pizzas but they've also given some tips to help you avoid those edgy moments completely so pulling sickies are a thing of the past!

• Pause and think 'do I really need/want to send this message'
• Write the message and save it in your draft folder before sending it. Then step away and do something else for 15 minutes before returning to your message to re-read it.
• Double-check the addresses of your intended recipients before you hit "send." Remember once it's gone you can never get it back again!
• If you've already sent a message to the wrong person, let them know it was a mistake and, if possible, ask them not to read the message - or at least to delete it right away!

Notes to editors:

About Pizza Hut UK Ltd

• Pizza Hut UK Ltd currently comprises 330 dine in restaurants across England, Wales and Scotland.
• The business serves over 3 million customers per month and employs more than 10,000 people.
• The restaurant business was named Best Pizza Chain for the second year running at the Pizza, Pasta and Italian Food (PAPA) awards in 2011 and was also voted Best Family Restaurant at the Tommy Awards in 2012, for the second year running.
• Pizza Hut opened its first restaurant in the UK in 1973. Since then Pizza Hut has launched the Deep Pan, Stuffed Crust, Cheesy Bites, 500 calorie Pizzetta, and Cookie Dough desert to the UK market.
• Pizza Hut also gives away 9,600 tonnes of free Salad each year through its salad bar and is a proud supporter of the World Food Programme Charity.

For further information, please contact:
Hatti Pickering/ +44(0)20-7908-6429/ hpickering@lexisagency.com
Lucy Hawes/ +44(0)20-7908-6456/ lhawes@lexisagency.com