It's designed to keep people alive but alleviating some of their loneliness. It's hard to explain to someone who has not experienced it themselves, but that little question, even automated, somehow helps.
I've got chronic health issues, and I found that keeping a really simple diary helped. There is an app called Migraine Log for Android, open source and stores data locally. It just asks you a single question - rate your pain on a scale of green, yellow, or red. I have a reminder set for it once a day.
I initially thought I would use it to track how effective different treatments are, but I found that just taking literally a couple of seconds to think about how I was feeling and log it somewhere was actually quite nice. I know nobody else will ever look at it, I know I'll probably never look at it, but knowing that there is a record of the suffering somewhere helps. Human emotions are not rational.