and no I don't use a chromium browser, I just really like my extensions
after making the meme I noticed that the cpu nearly matched the sims 4 level but the ram went to 42x less
don't worry about me giving money to EA, the game was obtained via mysterious means
Actually all of the game mechanics should be stopped when the game is paused.
The most likely culprit is the graphics pipeline still being busy assembling and sending data to render to the GPU every frame, since even though the 3D world is paused, the thing has to keep on operating because of the UI.
It should be possible to make it less of a problem if the UI you're interacting in during pause is on-screen 2D and all the 3D stuff is fully static (i.e. no autonomous movements such as simulated wind on leaves or running water) but depending on the graphics pipeline implementation being used, it might be too much trouble because you need to somehow have it stop rendering the 3D stuff and only do 2D.
Also, EA being as they are, I doubt the programmers had the time to go after a "cosmetic" (lowest priority) issue that probably has system design implications.