PlayTimer hides calls, emails, and texts for a set period of time, which is initiated by snapping a picture of your kid. For up to an hour, the phone remains dark and an alarm triggers if you touch it. You turn off the alarm, or unlock the phone after the allotted time, by taking another picture of your kid. Presumably, it won’t detect how much more bored the kid looks after 60 minutes with you. ALSO: Parental Control Apps For Tracking Your Kid’s Every Move UNICEF developed PlayTimer after research conducted in Sweden proved that most parents are regularly interrupted during time with their kids by work-related emails and calls. The study may have drawn the most obvious conclusion in the history of studying things, but the result is a simple, free, and effective phone app. That’s more than can be said of France’s recent half-assed attempt to ban work emails outside work hours.
