Rankin wants social media sites to "take responsibility" for what their users post.
Lily Allen in Rankin's new campaign
The iconic photographer believes we are living in an ever-increasing selfie culture, which encourages the over-editing of pictures creating "anxiety and Snapchat dysmorphia" which is a phenomenon where people are seeking plastic surgery to appear like filtered versions of themselves.
When asked how to tackle the problem, the British portrait director suggested that it "needs to be made clear" by apps when images online are altered and went on to explain that it's "natural" for users to compare themselves to pictures that are presented as reality.
Speaking to BANG Showbiz - following the launch of the new Vype x HoH collaboration for the ePen 3 range which he has shot the campaign images with Lily Allen - he said: "It would help if social media sites could start to take more of a responsibility of the things people are posting.
"We are living in a world of FOMO [fear of missing out], sadness, increasing anxiety and Snapchat dysmorphia. It's time to acknowledge the damaging effects that social media has on people's self-image. There needs to be more debate and finding ways to be more positive around being honest in a fake reality that social media for example; hash tagging, #nonfiltered or #notfacetuned.
"If something is altered it needs to be made clear. Without that the only way to escape this pressure is to get off the sites, to stop looking.
"Ultimately every time you look at an altered image that's presented to you as reality it's just human nature to compare yourself to what you see - I just hope we get on top of the harm they cause before it permanently scars whole generations."
In order to demonstrate just how detrimental photo editing apps can be, Rankin, 53, undertook a project earlier this year called 'Selfie Harm' which tasked 15 teenagers with editing portraits of themselves until they believed the images were "social media ready".
The Dazed and Confused founder revealed that each teenager had very similar "unrealistic beauty ideals" and each had friends who often used the photo editing apps when they uploaded an image on to Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.
He explained: "It's important to say we were NOT casting people that used these apps regularly, we found teenagers and asked them to try them out.
"They were shown how to use them, which literally takes seconds, then they did the editing themselves with the brief to "filter yourself to get more likes".
"They were all great and had really exciting personalities, but when they filtered themselves, they all made themselves more homogeneous - larger eyes, thinner chins, brighter skin.
" It's clear that they all have similar unrealistic beauty ideals that they're trying to make themselves match up to.
"All of the subjects preferred their untouched images but they all knew people who use these apps every time they upload. It was sad to hear, but not surprising."
Lily Allen is the face of Vype's new House of Holland collaboration in partnership with Rankin, celebrating the ePen 3 range. Available at govype.com
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