Why does the loading indicator remain animated even if the debugger is turned off or pauses the program execution?

The loading indicator (for example, UIActivityIndicatorView in iOS) is animated using a system animation mechanism that runs on a separate thread or within the interface rendering framework. When you pause the program in the debugger, the main thread stops, but the animation can continue because it is managed by the rendering system and hardware acceleration, which are not directly dependent on the application's code execution.

Additionally, if the debugger is disabled, the animation continues to work as this is standard behavior of UI components. Therefore, the indicator's animation does not stop when the program execution is paused because it is implemented at the system and GPU level, not just in the application code.