It can be quite challenging to balance academic and social media life but not impossible. Here are few changes which helped me in maintaining a balance between academic and social media life.

It is important to set academics as your first priority, have a clear idea of your aim and work towards it. Even though missing out on social media can be challenging but understand it is only a distraction between you and your goals. The best way to optimise your time is allocate specific time for your studies, sports, social media and other activities and follow it religiously. If you wish to effectively follow time management then you can use various apps or planners to organize your activities (Pomodoro app worked best for me). You can even use social media productively by following educational stuff to learn new things.

The most crucial thing to reduce social media usage is to set time limits and track it, turn off notifications and do not overuse social media as it reduces concentration. You can give yourself some reward after your time usage reduces even by 10 minutes. You can engage in outdoor activities or socialize with people in between your study breaks by not using social media.

I hope these help you to maintain balance as it helped me and take small steps daily to become better.