Biography

Lilia Spiegel is a student filmmaker, researcher, and activist in Southern California.  Her work investigates how technology reshapes human connection.  Her documentary, Low Tech Friend, a film about young adults across six countries struggling to forge lasting friendships in the age of social media, premiered at the 2024 Coronado Island Film Festival, where it won an Audience Choice Award.  The film also won the prestigious "Award of Recognition" at the Best Shorts Film Competition, and an Audience Choice Award at the 2025 Poppy Jasper Film Festival. Her short documentary, Drifting, follows a group of high school students who turn to fishing as a way to connect in our digitized environment.  It is an Official Selection at the 2025 San Luis Obispo International Film Festival, and was selected for distribution by Planet Classroom, a global platform for changemaking with over 200,000 subscribers.  Her short film, Kawan, a portrait of a bagel shop owner in Malaysia intent on creating multicultural spaces in the age of online divisiveness, was chosen as an official selection to the 2025 All-American High School Film Festival.  "Is Art Dead?" -- her film that explores technology's role in the creative lives of young people -- is premiering at the 2025 DaVinci International Film Festival.  It was one of ten accepted at the festival's student showcase (out of of over 600 submissions from college and high school students around the country). 

 

As the founder of the nonprofit CuringLoneliness (501c3), an organization dedicated to tackling teen digital loneliness, her work has been featured on NPR radio and local PBS television and Internet.  Her research has been published by the San Diego Union Tribune and AIM Youth Mental Health.  She will be presenting her recent research on teens and smartphone use at the Behavioral Tech Conference in November 2025.  She is currently one of only 1,230 semifinalists for the 2026 Coca-Cola Scholars Program, out of over 107,000 applicants (finalists will be announced in Spring 2026).  She is a proud alumna of both the U.S. Department of State’s National Security Language Initiative for Youth (NSLI-Y) and Semester at Sea.