The rural family social network has been gradually transformed from the traditional form limited by the intergenerational living distance to the new form of “formal core and functional network” in the information society. Utilizing data from 2018 China Longitudinal Aging Social Survey（CLASS）， this paper uses Healthy Aging Analysis Framework of the World Health Organization （WHO） and entropy method to measure the quality of life of the rural elderly. It compares the quality index with regard to different intergenerational living distances and uses SEM model to analyze the mediating effect of internet use on intergenerational living distance and the quality of life. The findings are as follows： First，the quality of life for the middle-aged and elderly people who are completely self-sufficient rural elderly and whose children live in the same town or district is equally satisfactory as the elderly whose children live in the same household or village. Second，internet use has a partial mediating effect on the relationship between intergenerational living distance and the quality of life of rural elderly people， which can be explained as the “voluntary empty-nest” phenomenon induced by internet use. Third， Emerging technologies such as the internet have not only broken the spatial limitations of rural social networks and expanded the moderate living distances， but also responded to policies aimed at revitalizing rural areas through county development. The government should consolidate the foundation of the rural digital environment， give full play to the role of technological advantages in promoting the social network of the elderly in rural areas， and facilitate the high-quality realization of the goals for rural revitalization.