What is social media to you?
Imagine that social media is a telephone network, but rather than only you and the person you call being able to hear your conversation, every other phone user on the network can choose to listen in and comment.
That is how "generation y" see it. I am talking to my friend over twitter about elearning. I know other people with similar interests on twitter will be scanning the stream for just such a conversation. I am also aware that they may choose to comment. If they do, suddenly I have new contact and a new conduit to information.