Through the appropriation of new media we can extend our capabilities as autonomous human beings. Media can liberate us from the constraints of time, space and social cohesion. At the same time, however, mediatization means that new forms of social and technological dependence emerge, accompanied by experiences of frustration, stress and existential anxiety. Mediatization is an inherently dialectical process, where design plays a lubricating role through making media devices and services culturally meaningful and user-friendly, sometimes even self-instructive. But critical understandings of mediatization also actualize the growing need for design that can respond to the new discontents that haunt our media-saturated lives. This regards anything from the shaping of digital interfaces to the creation of alternative physical environments for media (non-)use. In this talk I present a systematized view of the interplay between mediatization and design processes, followed by a critical discussion of the current role of social design initiatives