Your points are well-made as far as children are concerned.
My question was directed even more at adults than children.
I've heard recently on a UK radio phone-in ,where the subject was the environment, emailers asking to be informed about the subject.
I emailed the programme to say that libraries,newspapers,bookshops,organisations in the field and so on were awash with information and when were people going to read the stuff.
When the information is there aplenty, what's going on for people that they ask to be informed? It's as tho' they really want to be injected with knowledge without having to do anything. Or maybe they don't actually want to know, and the request to be informed is a way of shifting responsibility for becoming informed onto others without saying as much.