Digital phenotyping and sociological perspectives in a Brave New World

Skinner et al.’s Journal Club paper [1] was prompted by our original publication inAddiction [2]. Thereareareas covered whichdeserve furtherdiscussionand inwriting this,wefind ourselves in two minds. While we agree with Skinner et al. that the development of drinking guidelines and other interventions could benefit from a more contextualized understanding of alcohol use, we feel that some of our key arguments and the problems that we sought to highlight may not have been appreciated fully. Moreover, Skinner’s proposals raise new ethical challenges which merit attention. Here we discuss these points in turn.