I assume you disagree? Are you saying they understood it earlier or later?

Prior to WW1 (in Europe anyway), there was a distinct class-based disconnect on the impact of technology on society. Yes, the upper/political classes knew that it meant many more people had moved to the cities, and many industrialists were becoming rich.

But it was the impact of technology on warfare that forced the political classes to consider idea that technology leadership was a matter of national existence.

At the same time, the industrial scale of the war, and the huge number of people who lost their life led to wide-spread questioning of the political classes by the working class, which in turn led to an interest in the things that did affect them so much during the war: technology.

Nonsense. So hunter-gatherers didn't understand the impact of sharper stone knifes. And ALL technology prior to 20th century was an accident. Nobody could see the impact of an iron sword. And people in 19th century western Europe didn't understand that say Opium wars were won through better technology.

In the first two of these cases it was thought of as a one off advancement (eg, see the mythology around the discovery of iron - typically it involves a gift from a god).

In the case of the opium wars, the "lesson" learnt was the same lesson as during the subjection of India and other European colonies, ie: the cultural superiority of the white man.

Obviously is retrospect this was the wrong lesson, but that's what people thought at the time.