Update theme framework?

Hi everyone,

now, I will try to be concise, but I must admit I would like to write many questions in one. I was trying to do something with the theme of my website, and, looking for a solution, I ended up noticing that I was many versions late in the updates of the framework of my theme (Function, from Woo Themes).

Now, I found explanations on how to do so (https://support.woothemes.com/hc/en-us/articles/203104677-How-to-update-your-framework-to-latest-version), but not on why I should do it, nor what a framework is.

I usually google a lot before asking a question, but here, the word framework is used in many domains, and I have reached the limits of what I can do. I am very new to web sites, and the web site I manage was not created by me, so I am often lost… 🙂 Usually, I do only what is absolutely necessary, waiting for my inderstanding to improve. With the new update of wordpress (that I didn’t do either, yet), I guess I will be forced to update also all my plugins and themes to be sure everything works, right?

Thank you very much!