Youknow when I first got Photoshop (it was Adobe CS4 and I didn't know illustrator wasn't a drawing program and so I just...opened illustrator and used that for weeks) I went crazy into stream of consciousness interpretive and abstract art, mostly because it was a great way to get comfortable with the programs. I didn't even use it professionally or for really more than like 2 assignments until...years after I had bought the programs.
So I think that naturally shifting towards using digital mediums as a tool to amplify our professional traditional styles can only happen when we have a specific long term project or goal that is professional in some capacity, or we can't really restrict our learning towards one direction. But that's not a bad thing, because especially when we don't necessarily know what our next project is, we should be trying out new and exciting things to see what feels right.
That was kinda stream-of-councious-ey in and of itself, so I dunno if that made sense, but hopefully it did.