The application of Internet technology in daily life is becoming increasingly widespread, which not only affects the way the government interacts with society, but also brings new social issues and governance challenges. Among them, the political trust issues related to social stability require particular attention. Previous studies on the political impact of Internet use in China have largely failed to distinguish between different ways of Internet use, and there is also a lack of classification and comparison of research on the intermediary mechanisms of Internet impact on political trust. This article selects rational choice and social capital as research perspectives from two major sources of political trust: institutionalism and culturalism. Using JSNET 2014 survey data, it explores the direct and intermediary effects of Internet use on political trust, and compares the differences in effects brought about by different Internet use methods. By analyzing the logical relationship between the vertical and horizontal information dissemination mechanism in the Internet era through the government performance evaluation and social capital construction; the Internet usage can be divided into four types: collective intervention-social orientation, collective intervention-entertainment orientation, individual intervention-social orientation, and individual intervention-entertainment orientation. This paper explores the characteristic orientation and political impact of each type of behavior. Overall, Internet use negatively affects political trust, but the direct impact of different Internet use methods on political trust is different. It is also found that both government performance evaluation and social capital construction are the intermediary mechanisms for the indirect impact of the Internet on political trust, but they have the opposite effect. Specifically, government performance evaluation is the main intermediary path for the negative impact of the Internet on political trust, while social capital construction has, to some extent, suppressed the negative impact of the Internet on political trust. It is speculated that the information dissemination mechanism of the internet conforms to the logic of bottom-up social capital construction. Moreover, the direct and indirect effects of different internet usage on political trust are different, which may be due to the fact that the political relevance of different types of internet use is essentially different. Social orientation is a relatively stronger influencing factor, and the weakening effect of individual intervention on trust and participation does not offset the positive impact of social orientation. This research answers the question of “how Internet use affects political trust” from the perspectives of usage patterns and intermediary mechanisms, which helps to dialectically view the positive and negative effects of information technology. The research conclusions also have certain policy implications. Political trust is the embodiment of the tension between government and society. The government needs to implement effective policy measures to gather public opinion to ensure the legitimacy of governance, which is the embodiment of national governance ability. The institutionalist research path reflects this top-down power operation logic. People need to enhance trust through spontaneous political participation to maintain their political rights, which is a demand from society. The path of cultural research reflects this bottom-up social impact process. The Internet technology can be used not only as a tool for government empowerment by improving governance capabilities and upgrading governance models, but also as a channel for public empowerment by promoting citizens' political participation and driving political and social collaboration and co-governance, which further increases the complexity and uncertainty of the relationship between the government and the public, and has an inherent logical correspondence with the two types of research paths of political trust sources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]