Is it better to let kids create pictures on a computer screen only, or is it important for them to experience certain types of artistic mediums?

Asked by msh (4270) September 8th, 2015 from iPhone

I have noticed a trend with people who have smaller children. I see a lot of parents giving their child a computerized screen with which they tell them to ‘draw’ or ‘paint’ some pictures using only the screen and keying or fingerswipes across the screen as their means to do so. While talking in general to the parent(s), I was amazed at how many stated that they did not want to deal with the cleaning up of any messy art project their child ‘would’ get on the work area, the floor, the pets, and most vehemently, their child. ‘Clean up’ was the answer most given as to why they avoided any other medium.
I can understand keeping a child busy while out in public; ‘to keep them occupied’, but this seemed to be status quo at their homes also. It has stayed in my mind as to whether we are raising kids in such a sterile way that any creativity or artistic discovery with the ‘messy’, yet creativly more expressive part of trying different ways to create is being taken out of the kid’s experiences altogether.
Is it better for kids to just have the screened expression or should the parents get a grip on the obsessive /compulsive neat freak trend?
As an aside: some schools are not putting Art Class experience in their curriculums due to the rigors of teaching reading and writing for testing and skill-building purposes….in Pre-K and Kindergarten through 4th grade levels.
What are we leaving out of the kid’s life experiences by these changes?
Or does it even matter?