A Supra-Disciplinary Open Framework of Knowledge to Address the Future Challenges of a Network of Feelings

Looking at the last decade of evolution, 4G and current 5G (4th/5^th generation of mobile communications) boosted the integration of services (other than voice and text) provided to end-users, marking a significant discontinuity with previous generation. The maintenance of such a trend can be envisaged, imagining today what 6G (6^th generation) and, on a longer term, Future Networks (FNs) will be. Yet, within such a hectic scenario, the trend of a seamlessly increasing human-centricity of services and functionalities is clear. In this work, we claim that pursuing such an advancement exclusively from the point of view of technology and engineering may be limiting and, ultimately, potentially risky. To this end, we identify the development of an open and supra-disciplinary framework of knowledge, as a proper base to develop 6G and FNs. Such a model, apart from engineering-based disciplines, will have to be enriched by interactions with other sciences, among which psychology, cognitive and behavioral science are to be mentioned. To our vision, this will be the key to realize the concept of a Network of Feelings (Nof), which we regard as a relevant feature to support relentless integration of services and features in 6G and FNs.

I. Introduction

The way telecommunications and electronics evolved in the last two decades has given unprecedented acceleration to the change of our habits. If it took years to abandon fixed line telephones after the spread-out of mobile handsets (>2G — 2^nd generation of mobile communications). back in the 1990s, today (at the beginning of 5G era — 5^th generation) we are ready to switch from traditional to digitalized services in a matter of minutes. Whether this was made possible by remarkable advances in hardware (HW) and software (SW) technologies, it must be stressed that, on the other hand, user acceptance significantly improved, as well.