The study investigated the influence of academic stress and social media dependence on academic performance among undergraduate students of the Airforce Institute of Technology (AFIT), Kaduna, Nigeria. A cross-sectional survey design was adopted, and 376 undergraduate students were sampled from six departments (Mechatronics, Mechanical Engineering, Aerospace Engineering, Cybersecurity, Computer Science, and Statistics) using a convenience sampling technique. Data were collected using the Educational Stress Scale for Adolescents (ESSA; Moustaka et al., 2023), the Social Media Addiction Scale (Aylin & Levent, 2015), and the Academic Performance Scale (Birchmeier et al., 2024; validated by Raza et al., 2024). Simple linear regression and multiple regression analyses were employed to test three hypotheses. Results revealed that academic stress significantly and negatively influenced academic performance (B = -.268, β = -.616, t = -4.162, p < .001). Social media dependence also significantly and negatively influenced academic performance (B = -.118, β = -.573, t = -14.072, p < .001). Furthermore, academic stress and social media dependence jointly and significantly predicted academic performance [R = .872, R² = .762, F(2, 332) = 16.882, p < .001], jointly accounting for 76.2% of the variance in academic performance. These findings underscore the importance of addressing both psychological stress and digital dependency to enhance academic outcomes in Nigerian military-affiliated institutions.