Mean, Median, Mode: Which Average to Use When

Mean

Sum ÷ count. Sensitive to outliers. One billionaire can drag a neighborhood's mean income into the sky.

Median

The middle value when sorted. Ignores extremes. This is why housing prices are usually reported as medians.

Mode

The most frequent value. Useful for categorical data (most common shoe size sold).

A rule of thumb

Symmetric distributions: use mean. Skewed distributions (income, home price, response time): use median.