an example of choosing the median over the mean

Question

what is a real life example when you might prefer the median over the mean with a set of data?

Answer 1

You choose to use median over mean when there are severe outliers in the data set, that would skew the mean very far in one direction. Since median only looks at the middle number of a data set, it is not subject to the pull of outliers.

An example of a data set would be US household income. In 2018, the median was $63,179, while the mean was $90,021. Since there are some households that made several million dollars and would serve as outliers, the mean would shift far to the right. However, the median would better represent the amount that the average US household made.