No, not at all. Here are two equivalent definitions of a ring:
1. A monoid in the Ab-category.
2. A set R which is equipped with addition and multiplication.
The first definition is category theoretic, and requires you to know what abelian groups are and what it means for something to be 1) a category, 2) a monoid, and 3) a monoid in the category of abelian groups.
The second definition is straightforward if you can follow a few axioms and know naive set theory. It is helpful but unnecessary to understand that a ring is an abelian group which also supports multiplication in order to get the second definition. But even if you know this about rings, you'll still need to understand all the heavy lifting behind what the category of abelian groups actually means.
I'm not saying it's not useful. But I am saying one is clearly more accessible than the other, with fewer prerequisites.
1. A monoid in the Ab-category.
2. A set R which is equipped with addition and multiplication.
The first definition is category theoretic, and requires you to know what abelian groups are and what it means for something to be 1) a category, 2) a monoid, and 3) a monoid in the category of abelian groups.
The second definition is straightforward if you can follow a few axioms and know naive set theory. It is helpful but unnecessary to understand that a ring is an abelian group which also supports multiplication in order to get the second definition. But even if you know this about rings, you'll still need to understand all the heavy lifting behind what the category of abelian groups actually means.
I'm not saying it's not useful. But I am saying one is clearly more accessible than the other, with fewer prerequisites.