First: I wanna clarify this. I know that loads of people read like 100 books a year, or read all the time. I know these people exist. I’m asking about people that are like… average. An average american who just… reads. Doesn’t track everything or sets goals of like 100, or never stops reading… Anyway, I’ve been searching this up, and i find answers like 15-50, even 100. I find this highly unlikely, especially for average US citizens. Half the people i know don’t even pick up 5 books a year, let alone 15! I just don’t believe these stats. I read somewhere that people read 8 a month on average? That can’t be right for an average person. That’s like 2 books a week… I know people do read this much, but still… For an average person? So be real… how many books do people actually read a year?
The average and median are different things. They are calculated in specific ways. To find out what the “average American” is doing in any particular thing, you calculate exactly that value. My point is that the average tells us less here about how people are likely to behave than the average because of the way the average is affected by concentrations in distribution.
I understand the difference between the mean and median.
I’m saying that, when we speak of a non-numerical entities, such as “Americans”, “average” means “typical”, since one cannot add and divide humans. There is no value to calculate.
For example, if I say “the average Zebra lives in the savannah”, it’s clear I’m simply speaking of the typical zebra, right? Not some mathematical process involving numerical values associated with their various habitats. Same here. It’s likely OP meant to ask about the average number of books, though, not the average American.
Maybe I’m missing something in your argument but I’d argue the reverse: OP absolutely meant to ask about the median American not the mean number of books.
When they say average (or typical American), I think this is exactly what they mean. Some people read a lot, some don’t read anything, find someone in the middle - how many books are they reading? If I was in a plane or at the DMV and tried to strike up a conversation about books, what is the chance they could participate?
That’s how I interpreted their question, which is all about the median/statistical quantiles.
The mean and median are two different things. They are two different ways to measure the “average.” If it’s clear from context that a question would be better answered with the median, it’s not a great transgression to give that value. (Yes, in certain mathematical contexts we tend to use “average” synonymously with “mean” unless specified otherwise, but we’re in the world of casual speech right now anyhow.)
But to your original comment, you’re absolutely right, OP is thinking of “median” when they are asking this question, but the data they are getting is the mean.