Yep, you were raised at the other extreme, which is obviously not great either. Balance is what is required.
The thing with advertising is they try to make whatever they are selling seem like we need it, but it isn't the case. For me personally, I try to pay attention to what is actually important to me first and when something is "suggested" I cross-reference to see if it is something that satisfies my needs/likes, or of it is just something that I would buy and a short time after say, "what was I thinking? I don't need this."
I'm trying to do the same, I'm trying to get better informed, I used to read a lot of forums for different things and go into total detail, lose hours and hours, but then I realized that most of the time things don't really offer what their advertisers offer, so now I'm most sceptical about everything ...