Do I control my media...or does my media control me?

I have to say that I think it's a constant battle between the two. I personally know I try to keep myself separate from whats considered "cool". I didn't buy into ugg boots, I don't own an ipod, I don't read US weekly/perez hilton.com and I can go a whole day without using my cell phone. Which is more than I can say for most of my friends. I do feel however that just because I'm not involved in the popular forms of media It still manipulates me in many ways. What I find with this media course is anything that's thrown at me I tend to believe...which is very gullible of me but I don't know any better. I just assume people aren't lying and I'm just being given all this information I never knew before. Then I'm told the actual truth and I feel like an idiot for trusting all this false information.
I control the amount of media within my own house or car by picking up the remote or turning on my radio but one thing that seems kinda weird is I've been able to manage this entire semester without my own computer. I use to spend hours on my computer every day, for no reason at all just browsing. I found that because of this I've been going back to old methods of sending letters home, which makes me feel pretty good. But since not having 24/hr access to a computer in my place I have been able to step away from things like facebook for long periods of time which gives me a sense of realism again...because lets face it facebook is NOT real life. Real life is conversing face to face. You know people are going to read/stalk your wall so how can anyone be real, you adjust your posts so other view you in the way you want.
Then I think about how often I see ads and billboards that I glance at and automatically think mmm, I kinda want that, so I just contradict my beliefs of not conforming to pop culture. What do you do though when something you truly like is considered "following the trends"? I don't know whether to give in and be seen as a sheep...or give up what I want to try and be different.