Interesting, I have had exactly this problem while writing Science Fiction. I started out writing a novel set in some amorphous time in the ‘late twenty-first century’ but by the time I had finished the first draft I had to pin that down more. Then before I started the editing process, I dropped everything, went back an wrote a timeline for the history leading up to the events in the story, beginning at the present day.

Part way through that edit cycle I realized I needed more information about the current time and current technology. So I researched quite a bit about what had happened in the recent past in parts of the world I wasn’t familiar with, and technology that I hadn’t used. After I finished that draft, I expanded the research, ending up dropping back into the 1980s for the start of my timeline because things that happened then had impacts on the early life of some characters. So yes I can see how needing to know the historical context is essential. It is important for stories based on future events also, even if sometimes it is not quite as apparent.