"...There she was, oblivious to man and dog, listening to far winds and whispers and soap opera cries, sleep walking, helped up and down curbs by a husband who might just as well not have been there. This was not fiction." 2/2

Fahrenheit 451 was published in 1953. Those "four or five decades" puts it somewhere in 1993-2003. Which sure seems to track with me. Read the book again (or watch the 1966 movie -- I haven't seen the 2018 version), and you will instantly recognize today.