What is the actual use of the median and mode in statistics compared to the average (mean)?
In: Mathematics
I heard this ELI5-ish analogy a while ago and it was worth remembering:
There are 10 people in a room. 9 of the people have no apples at all. The 10th person has ten apples. The *average* person has 1 apple…which is true mathematically, but utterly false realistically. *Averages* can be dragged far to one side or the other.
The *median* person has no apples, which is true both mathematically and realistically. The *median* is much less vulnerable to distortion from a single data point far outside all the rest.
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