Will Ferrell did a bunch of very funny PSAs about putting down your damn cellphone

By Gwen Ihnat | October 23, 2017 | 5:20pm

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We wrote just last week about the recent Common Sense Media report on the significant increase in device usage for children, primarily on tablets and phones. And it seems reasonable to suspect that these kids are absorbing a lot of that behavior from their own screen-addicted parents.

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In an effort to save yet another generation from becoming a populace of head-down, shuffling, phone-obsessed zombies, Common Sense Media has now released a series of PSAs. To promote the #DeviceFreeDinner campaign, the shorts star Will Ferrell as a dad who ignores his spouse and offspring at the family dinner table in favor of his favorite device. Even an attempt to get him just to put the phone in the no-phone-zone basket falls flat.

Thanks to Ferrell’s deadpan and the family’s increasing outlandish comments to get him to pay attention to them (Mom: “I got a tramp stamp”; Son: “I’m selling bongs out of the mini-van”), the PSAs are very funny. But they also offer a valuable message: Put down the fucking phone. (Adding: “find a no-phone basket for the dining room” to tonight’s to-do list.)