Why is the Median a thing? Why would someone need to find the Median of a data set?

Question

I know it’s a common saying that statistics isn’t intuitive to humans. I’ve read my Taleb. *Intuitively*, I can see why one might need to find the mean (average) of a data set as well as the mode.

But where and why would someone need to find the Median? I’ve never calculated the median of a data set in daily life. On the other hand, I compute the mean of several values multiple times a week sometimes. I don’t calculate Modes that much, but I can see **why** someone would care about the most-occurring value.

Can someone explain the relevance of finding the Median? I’m sure there are plenty of useful applications and I’m just unaware of them.

Thanks in advance!

In: 4

Answer 1

Consider salary. In a group of 500 people the median income gives you much more information about salaries than the Mean. The mean is strongly influenced by extreme numbers.