What do you do when you are trying to spend time with your friends, but they are neglecting you as their eyes are focused on the mobile phones they are using?

According to four Nanyang Technological University students, you can hire a ninja to snatch their phones away, pretend to spot a celebrity to catch their attention, or use a vacuum cleaner to suck the phone away.

These were three of the 10 extreme methods mentioned in a YouTube video released by the students on Tuesday, which teaches viewers what they can do to get their friends off the phones.

The video is part of a final-year project that the students at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information are working on.

They started a social campaign named Put It On Friend Mode, to encourage people to put their phones in a face-down position at social situations - on "friend" mode. This allows individuals to be better friends to their peers.

The video stars three local YouTube celebrities who are known as the Tree Potatoes, who have over 100,000 YouTube subscribers.

They act out different scenarios where one has to resort to extreme measures to get another party to stop using the phone.

In a media release sent by the campaign organisers, they said the video - the fifth one they have released since December - aims to drive home the message that anti-social mobile phone behaviour disrupts quality time and kills off opportunity for a good conversation to take place.

The video also shows how "it should never come to a point where over-the-top shenanigans are required to get someone off their mobile phones," the statement added.