Would you use Windows without doing Patch Tuesdays ? While keeping safe cyber hygeine ? Of course it is unsafe. There are varying degrees of un-safe-ness depending on what bugs the patches fix. A remote code execution bug is the worst, an attacker can tap on his computer and you get hacked. A privilege escalation bug is less so, the attacker has to be inside your box and execute this privilege escalation exploit. A security bypass is somewhere between the two.
Now look at the Android. The bugs may not be classified as neatly for you ( I don't know ) but the same classes of bugs exist.
Now look at this month's Patch Tuesday. 96 Privilege escalations. 20something RCEs. I am not saying for sure that Androids have this many bugs. Google's programmers maybe way better than MS's, but where's the chance of that? I remember many years ago my Android was hacked to smithereens.
Not patching is just asking for trouble. And if you are like most young people, you use your phone more than you use Windows. Which underlines the necessity of security on your cell phone.
