Lifestyle trends and media

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Lifestyle changes have been increasing slowly since the introduction of media. Lifestyle changes include how people eat, dress, and communicate. Media – films, television shows, magazines, and more recently, the Internet (i.e. self-written blogs and popular websites) are the main sources of lifestyle influence around the world. Douglas Kellner writes, "Radio, television, film, and the other products of media culture provide materials out of which we forge our very identities; our sense of selfhood; our notion of what it means to be male or female; our sense of class, of ethnicity and race, of nationality, of sexuality; and of "us" and "them.""^[1]

Lifestyle trends have always been influenced by the wealthy and famous, whether they are spotted at leisure or in a paid advertisement. At the dawn of the media age, the newspaper, popular magazines like Life, and TV allowed the general public glimpse lifestyles that before were only available to the imagination. After its creation, the Internet became arguably the most powerful medium for spotting and influencing trends, not just by celebrities but by the average person.

The average American household has two personal computers, making the Internet easily accessible. The computer era has changed the way people obtain their news, perspectives and communication. Magazines are still popular, but advertisers now often supply a web address where consumers can visit for more information than a print ad can provide. Advertisers have tapped into social media, including Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr to take advantage of word-of-mouth marketing. The rise of user-generated content is exemplified by the fact that anyone with Internet access can create a blog or an online journal, whether personal or commercial, which might detail someone's experience in a new restaurant, a purchased item of clothing or knickknack, or a review for a film.