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What is it going to take for people to put down their phones? Chick-fil-A believes ice cream could do the trick.

The fast food chain is now offering free ice cream cones to customers who turn their phones off for their entire meal in select restaurants.

鈥淎lthough our phones were meant to bring us closer together, they can ,鈥� the company said in a statement Tuesday.

Called the 鈥淐ell Phone Coop Challenge,鈥� patrons are challenged to place their electronics into a white, wired box 鈥� the 鈥渃oop鈥� 鈥� and refrain from retrieving them while they eat.

鈥淲e really want our restaurant to provide a sense of community for our customers, where family and friends can come together and share quality time with one another,鈥� Brad Williams, the Georgia-based Chick-fil-A operator responsible for the idea, said in a release.

鈥淏ut as we all know, technology increasingly demands more of our time and can be a big distraction, even while we鈥檙e eating,鈥� he continued. 鈥淭his got me thinking about what we could do to reduce this distraction during meals.鈥�

So, Mr. Williams and his team came up with the Coop Challenge. Currently, there are more than 150 locations out of the chain鈥檚 nearly 2,000 stores nationwide that participate in the challenge, though the company suggests reaching out to local operators to see whether they offer the promotion.

As cited by the chicken sandwich restaurant, Americans spend an average of 4.7 hours per day on their phones, according to a 2015 Informate Mobile Intelligence study. And despite the fact that most people consider cell phones on the dinner table to be inappropriate, there鈥檚 a considerable generational gap within this dataset. Millennials born after 1982, for instance, tend to聽, according to the Center for the Digital Future.

Sure enough, the habit carries some social consequences. A study published in the journal Environment and Behavior found that beyond the variables of age, gender, ethnicity, and mood, dinner companions tend to have without the presence of a mobile device on the table.

And in the wake of this growing trend, Chick-fil-A isn鈥檛 the first restaurant to try to dissuade customers from picking up their phones. In Sioux City, Iowa, servers at Sneaky鈥檚 Chicken offer their guests a 10 percent discount if they put their phones in a special box during dinner.

鈥淲e noticed that within our own family we were way too connected to our phones and thought maybe we could get others to ,鈥� co-owner Christy Wright told The Huffington Post in 2014.

Some places 鈥� like Rogue 24 in Washington, D.C., or the Violet Hour in Chicago 鈥� have gone as far as banning the electronic devices. But these policies haven't exactly been met with excitement. It seems that, at the end of the day, incentives are more effective than restrictions.

According to Ms. Wright at Sneaky鈥檚, everyone is a fan of the deal 鈥� even those who work there.

鈥淓verybody loves it,鈥� Wright said. 鈥淭he staff is arguing over who鈥檚 going to work Wednesday night now.鈥�